A work in progress by Anula Shetty and Michael Kuetemeyer in collaboration with Fred Harris and Franklin ʻQʻ Tate.
In North Philly, there’s a magical penny-candy store that’s only visible to children. To visit, you have to keep an eye out for the flag — faded blue silk, reading “WILL POWER” — flapping above the door of an ordinary rowhome. For 20 years its proprietors Ms. Nandi and Mr. Khalid have sold candy in their living room and taught kids counting, Black history, and self-respect.
Their story is just one told by our SPACES team. This fall, SPACES Artists in Residence Michael Kuetemeyer and Anula Shetty teamed up with lifelong community residents Fred Harris and Q Tate to investigate the question: how does change happen in our neighborhood? Mike and Anula mentored Fred and Q in filmmaking and editing, and Fred and Q led them deep into the neighborhood’s memory and relationships.
The result is “Places of Power”, an immersive documentary of the Fairhill-Hartranft neighborhood that invites viewers to experience North Philadelphia through the eyes of its healers, artists and civic leaders. Hosted online as a web-based app and debuting in May, its finished version will include in-depth film profiles of 4 remarkable North Philadelphia change agents, as well as stories, freestyles, cooking lessons, songs, and more collected through various creative research tactics.
The SPACES artist residency invites visiting artists from around the world to live at the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia. The artists work with neighborhood residents for a period of 4 to 9 months to create arts-based solutions to neighbor-identified challenges.