Multitudes: Music and Poetry inspired by Making American Artists
Music, poetry and art combine for a powerful illumination of what it means to be an American and an American artist today.
World Cafe Live and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) present Multitudes, a multisensory event series. Hear world premiere works from some of Philadelphia’s top musicians and poets, all inspired by PAFA’s current exhibition, Making American Artists, and commissioned by World Cafe Live.
Inspired by the exhibition’s presentation of new narratives in American art history— spotlighting stories about women artists, LGBTQIA+ artists, and artists of color—Multitudes asks five musicians and three poets to share their personal reactions to the artwork. The result is a highly personal and powerful illumination of what it means to be an American and an American artist today.
Read more in Broadway World, Metro Philadelphia, and Philadelphia RowHome Magazine.
Performance Schedule
Saturday, February 4 at PAFA
Multitudes Opening Reception: 7:00pm
View the exhibition that inspired the performers and toast this exciting new series with us!
Show in the Rhoden Arts Center: 8:00pm
$20/$15 PAFA Members&Alumni
Featured Artists: Raina Leon, Salina Kuo, Kendrah Butler Waters, Kirwyn Sutherland, Devi Majeske, and ILL DOOTS*
*ILL DOOTS will not be appearing live at this event, their performance will be streamed.
Thursday, February 16 at World Cafe Live
Doors with restaurant open: 6:00pm
Dine at WCL's full service restaurant before the show.
Show in The Lounge: 8:00pm
$20
Featured artists: Raina Leon, Kingsley Ibeneche, Jaylene Clark Owens, Devi Majeske, ILL DOOTS*
*ILL DOOTS will not be appearing live at this event, their performance will be streamed.
Wednesday, March 8 at World Cafe Live
Doors with restaurant open: 6:00pm
Dine at WCL's full service restaurant before the show.
Show in The Lounge: 8:00pm
$20
Featured Artists: Salina Kuo, Kendrah Butler Waters, Kirwyn Sutherland, ILL DOOTS*
*ILL DOOTS will not be appearing live at this event, their performance will be streamed.
Saturday, March 18 at PAFA
Exhibition Viewing: 7:00pm
Before the show experience the art that inspired the performers.
Show in the Rhoden Arts Center: 8:00pm
$20/$15 PAFA Members&Alumni
Featured Artists: Kingsley Ibeneche, Jaylene Clark Owens, and ILL DOOTS
Organizers
Artistic Director of Education & Engagement at World Cafe Live
Josh Campbell is an award-winning teaching artist, arts administrator, and creative who has worked for arts and arts education organizations in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Over the course of his career, he has worked with various populations including students in grades K-12, English Language Learners, and the creative aging community in a variety of settings including libraries, shelters, virtual rooms, and juvenile justice facilities. As a facilitator he has developed workshops focusing on the intersection of creativity, leadership, equity, vulnerability, and black artmaking traditions. As an artist, he works in the choreopoem tradition, blending spoken word, movement, multimedia, and musicality of the late 90s to create spaces that reimagine the possibilities of freedom and liberation. Currently, he is a member of Jouska Playworks, a Philadelphia playwriting collective focused on amplified stories of the African American diaspora. A Baltimore native, he is a graduate of the University of the Arts and Baltimore School for the Arts where he studied classical music and the tuba.
Assistant Director of Public Programs at PAFA
Before joining PAFA, Lori Waselchuk was the exhibitions and programs coordinator at TILT, where she co-created and directed the Women’s Mobile Museum with Zanele Muholi. She is a documentary photographer whose works have appeared in national and international exhibitions and publications. Waselchuk also curates and coordinates projects that prioritize creative engagement and social change, including Grace Before Dying (Umbrage Editions 2010), a collaboration with incarcerated hospice caregivers at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Waselchuk has received many honors for her work including an Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photography Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship for the Arts and a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award.
Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776–1976
With over one hundred of the most acclaimed and iconic pieces in American art on display, Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776–1976 takes you on a journey across time, medium, and identity.
The exhibition offers new narratives in American art history, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQIA+ artists, and artists of color. It also poses central questions about the artist’s experience: what did it mean to be an American artist when the nation was founded? How had that changed by the late-twentieth century?
Organized by theme—portraiture, history painting, still life, genre scenes, and landscape—and not chronology, the exhibition affords the opportunity to enjoy familiar works in a new light and find new favorites.
Each of the featured artists’ careers were shaped by PAFA, whether through their education or the exhibition and display of their work. Making American Artists critically re-examines PAFA’s legacy while shedding light on its continuing role in shaping American art of the twenty-first century.
Making American Artists is also your final chance to see these beloved works before they temporarily leave PAFA on a national exhibition tour, organized by the American Federation of Arts, from June 2023–May 2025.