“Telling the Story: The Intersection of Art and Social History” investigates the power of the visual image to document upheaval, to commemorate individuals, and to heal wounds. Featuring Louis Massiah, Christian Michel, artists from Philadelphia Airbrush, Khalid Nasser, Pang Xiong Sirirathasuk Sikoun, and Tyeakia, the exhibition includes art, in a variety of media, that chronicles moments in history for public commemoration and private meditation. The artists relate stories from past and present that have taken place in their own backyards—whether on a West Philadelphia street or in the far-flung regions: Haiti or Southeast Asia.

Todd & Key:
Manni


Todd & Key:
Luis 100

Throughout North Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Airbrush and Tattoo studio has produced In Memory murals—honorary portraits of the deceased, framed by the names of family and friends. To the surrounding neighborhood, the murals bear witness to the community’s love and respect; they announce, in perpetuity, the tragedy of lives cut short. Commissioned by those left behind, these iconic combine photographs, stories, and memories provided by the bereaved. The artists of Philadelphia Airbrush —including Key, Todd, and Vince—are adept at graffiti and tattooing, and the precise airbrush rendering of their subjects is a perfect match for the commemorative purpose of these murals.

This grassroots artistic tradition exists in other cities; it has become a commonplace sight in urban neighborhoods from Philadelphia and New York to Los Angeles, where murals transform the walls of crumbling neighborhoods into a tangible space of memory and homage. Placed in the area—often on the street—where the lost loved one once lived, the photorealist images of the deceased are framed in a mandorla or set against blue skies and ocean vistas. A particularly familiar feature in the Latino—chiefly Puerto Rican—neighborhoods of North Philadelphia, these murals recall the Catholic practice of constructing shrines in honor of the Madonna or the saints. Their idyllic backgrounds bring to mind halos, an essential component of that tradition, and certainly refer to the attainment of peace and tranquility in the afterlife. As with many depictions of saints, most of those memorialized are identified by an attribute—updated to contemporary time and culture: a motorcycle, a basketball, an SUV, a cell phone.

The majority of these murals were produced in the 1990s, perhaps in conjunction with a rise in urban violence and drug use. By painting tragedy on the wall—the protagonists are all young people who have died in any number of circumstances: perhaps caught in crossfire, dead from an overdose, killed in a car accident—family and friends can grieve publicly and with the support of the larger community. The images transcend the personal to speak of the precariousness of life and to warn future generations of the futility of violence.

In Memory images appear in a variety of forms: on car hoods and rear windshields; on T-shirts and sweatshirts; on sneakers and work boots. These images infiltrate urban space, and the faces of the deceased read like brand-name labels, immediately recognizable signs of a person’s background, origins, personal experience. By painting on Timberland work boots (a must-have accessory for young urban black men) Khalid Nasser expands on this memorializing device to address such larger political concerns as institutional power and race relations. In Welcome America, the police beating of an African American caught on videotape becomes a symbolic image of injustice and signals the wearer’s take on current events. Nasser represents the departed, describes political alliances, and expresses social commentary on an intimate, wearable scale. His messages, both critical and celebratory, literally walk through Philadelphia.

Tyeakia’s art reflects a more broad-based world view. Her collages portray the learned, the leaders, and the famous from around the globe. The pieces each highlight the people of a distinct race or continent, but they are meant to be seen together, unified to present an image of our collective humanity. Her obsessively compiled cast of characters includes scholars, politicians, artists, designers, actors, educators, and pop culture heroes. The participants come from various times in history, and her vision allows for a melding of the age-old with the contemporary. Her collages about Martin Luther King, Jr., and MOVE provide, in words and pictures, an account of injustice and brutality. Constructed of worn and ragged clippings and edited selections of newspaper text, they are a scrapbook which chronicles historical events and their emotional impact. Tyeakia makes laminated reproductions of her originals and passes them out to neighborhood youth, passersby, visitors to her studio, whoever may be interested. Believing that these images are of universal importance, that they belong to everyone, she wants them to be seen as artworks and, at the same time, to be disseminated as educational materials.

Louis Massiah’s film, The Bombing of Osage Avenue, tells the story of MOVE, committing it to celluloid history. A subject of lasting impact that caused public outcry and “irrational guilt” among neighborhood residents and raised questions of official culpability, the MOVE incident of 1985 continues to haunt the collective psyche of Philadelphia, from the Cobb’s Creek neighborhood where the drama unfolded to the city at large. Massiah¦s masterful documentary is both educational and expressive, weaving facts and memories and exposing unsettling truths about the eleven MOVE members who died, the 61 homes destroyed, and the 250 residents displaced. Fulfilling documentary film’s promise of enlightenment about societal issues, The Bombing of Osage Avenue offers a different view of the story, one in which the entire narrative is developed from the point of view of the residents of Osage Avenue.

Christian Michel
Miscarriage

The work of both Christian Michel and Pang Xiong Sirirathasuk Sikoun explicitly recounts the events that shaped their lives, their families, and their countries. Christian Michel’s realist paintings chart specific historical events from Haiti’s complex political past. From the people’s subjugation under French colonial rule to continuing civil unrest (symbolized most powerfully in The Most Dangerous Enemy, an image of the coup that deposed the first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide) Michel illustrates—with a combination of pathos and satire—the violence that has characterized Haitian affairs of state . In such allegorical works as Make a Choice, he relates the collective and universal emotions of fear and uncertainty to the specific trials of everyday life in his troubled homeland.

Pang Xiong
New Lifestyle in America

The precision and color of Pang Xiong’s embroideries belie the pain and seriousness of her subject matter: the horrors of armed invasion, Cambodian displacement, and escape to a new country. Called Pa ndau, the embroideries, or story quilts, are the traditional vehicle by which the Hmong people record their collective experience. Generations of women have created similar textile pieces to document Hmong life and customs in agrarian China, their expulsion from the ancestral lands, and their long trek south, during the nineteenth century, to the mountains of Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. They maintained that tradition during the Vietnam War, when Hmong guerrilla units assisted the American CIA in fighting the Communists. After the war, during which between 10,000 and 20,000 Hmong men, women, and children were killed, more than 100,000 fled to Thai refugee camps. Pang Xiong served as a teacher for four years in the camps, instructing over 350 women on everything from language to sewing in preparation for possible relocation to the U.S. Her quilts document the Killing Fields, the journey from Cambodia to Laos, and her resettlement in Upper Darby in 1979.

From large-scale public works to images meant for domestic interiors, these artists’ visual narratives offer insight into personal tragedy, political struggle, and current events. Intended for members of a specific community, many of these artworks are rarely seen and appreciated by a general audience. Combined, these voices afford the rare opportunity for a better understanding of the experiences and preoccupations of these individual communities, at the same time revealing art’s ability to serve as a vehicle for greater understanding among people.