Oral History students at the University of Pennsylvania will host a conversation with the artists who have brought to life the Women’s Mobile Museum, a year-long collaboration between the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (PPAC), the South African visual activist Zanele Muholi, and 10 Philadelphia artists who identify as women and femmes. It is an ambitious project that comes at a time when women are re-examining the barriers they face to achieving political and economic legitimacy and to effecting social change towards equal rights. It includes an artist residency for Muholi; a yearlong, paid apprenticeship in the media arts for the participants; an exhibition that will have toured three locations in Philadelphia; and a culminating exhibition at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (January 24 – March 30, 2019). Our starting points are questions that oral historians, ethnographers, artists and activists wrestle with: about narrative, about self-representation, and about political purpose.

Artists include:

afaq is an artist, activist, and educator who seeks to love the world until it loves her back.

Shasta Bady is an aspiring scientist, visual artist, and sporadic papermaker. Her influences include Lyndsey Addario, Sebastiao Salgado, and Malick Sidibe. She enjoys exploring the subtleties of light, color, and staying available to visual spontaneity. Through her art she aims to celebrate the depth of our connectedness and commonalities.

Danielle Morris (°1993, Philadelphia) is a self-taught photographer who mainly works in street and self-portraiture. With a conceptual approach, Morris absorbs the tradition of remembrance art into daily practice. Her works are often about the contact between urban architecture and the living elements of feminism. Morris focuses on the idea of the feminine in ‘public space’ and more specifically on spaces where anyone can do anything at any given moment: the non-private space, the non-privately owned space, and space that is expressed through proximity to her subjects and their otherness to her sense of femininity. Morris was a contributing artist to the 2018 SPACES Residency, "Home Court" lead by visual artist Shawn Theodore.  She has exhibited at The Barnes Foundation through Let's Connect Philly, where she placed in the top 20 of the participating artists. Morris is a former assistant teacher of photography at the Village of Arts and Humanities.

Carrie Anne Shimborski is a Philadelphia native, abstract painter, Master Doodler, and an emerging photographer. Throughout her work, Shimborski seeks to capture the raw, real and present emotion of her subjects. As a self-taught artist, Shimborski has created numerous pieces of artwork, however, her greatest creations thus far, is the light of her life, her son Luca!

Andrea “Philly” Walls feels brutalized by stories of global injustice, including poverty, human displacement, and violence against the environment. She makes art across genres as an act of resistance. She is grateful to the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, The Leeway Foundation, The Hedgebrook Community for Women Authoring Change, and The Women’s Mobile Museum for their ongoing support and sustenance. She is pleased that her poetry and visual art have found homes in publications she admires, including Callaloo, Journal of African Diaspora Arts & Letters; Solstice Literary Magazine; Tidal Basin Review; Kweli; The Fourth River; bozalta: Arts, Activism & Scholarship and heart (human equity through art) online journal. She lives and makes art in Philadelphia and continues to seek creative ways to disengage with capitalist structures, racist institutions, and all systems of oppression.

Lori Waselchuk is a visual storyteller whose photographs have appeared in print and online media worldwide. Her work is exhibited internationally and is part of many collections including the New Orleans Museum of Art, Portland Museum of Art and South African National Gallery. Waselchuk also curates and coordinates exhibitions and special projects that prioritize creative social engagement. Most notable is Grace Before Dying, a collaborative photographic documentary about a hospice program in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Waselchuk coordinated the Philly Block Project, PPAC’s 16-month visual collaboration with Hank Willis Thomas and residents of the South Kensington neighborhood. Waselchuk is a recipient of the 2014 Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award, the 2012 Pew Fellowship for the Arts, the Aaron Siskind Foundation’s 2009 Individual Photographer Fellowship, and the 2004 Southern African Gender and Media Award.

Refreshments will be provided by the History Department and this event is open to the public. Please RSVP at farnswor@sas.upenn.edu.