Shelter Opening Reception –

Friday, November 6

5-7 pm

FREE

           
Reception, exhibition, presentation

Our First Friday reception introduces the work of the 14 artists and ten families who collaborated to create Shelter. After Rebuilding Together Philadelphia helped the families restore their homes, the artists documented the stories of the lives within those walls. Meet the artists and the families and learn what shelter means to each of them. Artist Damon Reaves will perform a new work combining that combines audio and physical action. The performance and his drawings reflect conversations about race and identity that he had with the collaborating homeowner, interpreting shelter as “feeling at home in one’s skin” with both its protection and restrictions.

Exhibition runs through December 31

Obsolete and Whining – Saturday, November 7

5:30-6:30 pm

Presentation, film screening, book signing

FREE

Payphones. Rolodexes. Cursive writing. The dustbin of modern history is overflowing with “once-common things passing us by.” Anna Jane Grossman joins us at the Festival to reminisce about the good old ways, documented in her quirky new encyclopedia, Obsolete. She shares program with Cecilia Smith, who screens her short documentary “The Art of Fine Whining” – about the Philadelphia Complaint Choir that premiered at 2008 Festival and lives on in cyberspace.

L.W.O.P. (Life Without Parole) – Sunday, November 8

2:-3:00PM

Film screening and Q&A (Philadelphia premiere)

FREE

In 1980, Kenneth E. Hartman was sentenced to life in prison for a brutal murder he committed at age 19.  His violent behavior persisted for years behind bars until he eventually he transformed himself into to a student of philosophy, a reader of books, a self-taught authority on prison law, and became a husband and a father.   He is now a writer and activist, devoted to the moral and practical necessity of reforming the American correctional system.   Join us for a videotaped reading by Mr. Hartman from his memoir, Mother California, followed by a Q&A, phoned in live from the California State Prison in LA.