Megawords is hosting What Belongs in a City?,  an exciting and provocative panel discussion at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Led by Diana Lind, editor in chief of Next American City magazine, panelists will address questions of how we can improve our cities and make them thriving, cultural centers in which people want to live. The discussion will center around the built environment as well as ongoing changes and possible improvements to the economy and society.

Sunday, April 1, 2012
2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Perelman Media Room (located in the Perelman building, across from main building)
FREE – Tickets required! Get them here: http://tinyurl.com/7c4olht
Directions: www.philamuseum.org/perelman

Click more to read about our invited panelists!

Here’s a bit about our invited panelists:

Toni Griffin is Professor of Architecture and Director, J. Max Bond Center, Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York, CUNY. She is currently creating a long-range development plan for the City of Detroit through its “Detroit Works” program. Among other positions, Toni has been Director for the Division of Planning and Community Development for the City of Newark, New Jersey; Vice President and Director of Design for the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation in Washington, DC; and a Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.

Quilian Riano is an architect and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. He the architecture firm, DSGN AGNC and is collaborating on a variety of architectural design and research projects with other groups, including the non-profit Architecture 2030, Estudio Teddy Cruz, Archinect, Places Journal, #lgnlg and Harvard University. He currently teaches at Parsons The New School for Design.

Anthony Smyrski is a creative director, artist, and cultural producer. He is co-founder of the experimental media project Megawords, and the owner of the eponymous design firm Smyrski Creative. He works in both the cultural and commercial spheres with clients and artists around the world. Smyrski recently participated in the One is the Loneliest Number at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, and Creative Time’s Living As Form exhibition held in the historic Essex Street Market in Manhattan. The Megawords project currently calls the Philadelphia Museum of Art home, where they have created an installation that is equal parts gathering space, event venue, artist studio, and store.

Zoe Strauss is an installation artist and photographer. Strauss recently completed “Under I-95,” a 10 year long project that culminated in an installation of photographs under interstate 95 in South Philadelphia. She has exhibited in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Philadelphia ICA and had two solo shows at Bruce Silverstein Gallery. In 2005, Ms. Strauss was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and in 2007 she was awarded a USA Gund Fellowship. Her first monograph, America, was published in 2008. Ms. Strauss is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Public Art Project.

Dre Urhahn works with creative partner Jeroen Koolhaas under the title Haas&Hahn. The duo started working together in 2005, when they filmed a documentary about hip hop in the favelas of Rio and São Paolo for MTV. Inspired by this visit, they embarked on a journey to bring outrageous works of art to unexpected places, starting with painting enormous murals in the slums of Brazil together with the local youth.

Camilo José Vergara is a Chilean-born, New York-based writer, photographer and documentarian. He has published seven books including New American Ghetto, How the Other Half Worships and Subway Memories. In 2002, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” and his work has been exhibited in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Smithsonian Institution, National Building Museum and other venues.

TAKE TWO: A COLLECTION OF COLLABORATIVELY MADE FILMS
Whenever Wednesday, May 18, 8pm

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

Here is a map for directions: http://tinyurl.com/42q54zb

Take in a screening of films by Megawords’ international network of filmmakers, featuring work from the Maysles Brothers, Adams & Itso, Matthias Wermke and Mischa Leinkauf, and the Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives collection.

Wermke and Leinkauf’s short films are thought provoking documentations of their interactions with cities and architecture. Through their unusual and daring performances, they confront our preconceptions of public and private space, and how we approach the concrete and mental layout of the city each day.

In a similar subtly provocative manner, Adams and Itso’s work documents the illegal construction and habitation of a small dwelling inside the Copehagen central train station. The film is a fascinating look into the imaginative use of overlooked space within an the walls of Denmark’s busiest train station.

The Maysles brothers need no introduction, and we are happy to show a 30 minute reel of select clips from various films created by the fraternal duo including Salesman, Gimme Shelter, early footage from Russia, footage of Christo and more. A great introduction to the Maysles oeuvre for the newcomer, and a pleasant reminder of the breadth of the brothers talent for familiar fans.

We discovered “Graffiti” in the Temple University Urban Archives. The short made for TV documentary  was created in 1976 by WPVI, a local broadcasting station in Philadelphia. It documents citizens initial reactions to the explosion of graffiti in the city, and raises questions about artistic expression in public space. Learn more about the Urban Archives here: www.facebook.com/pages/Urban-Archives-Paley-Library-Temple-University/83447331003

In Philadelphia, solar powered, compacting garbage cans that one has to touch to open? Embarrassing to say the least….

Don’t forget to have a secret place to hang out!!!!

Many wall writers from the 70′s still find time to sign their childhood nicknames on the walls of Philadelphia, here, JS (johnski) has retraced some classic gang signatures and signed his name at the bottom of the wall over 35 years after his heyday.