Throughout 2023, our Cultural Properties project is exploring shared ideas of home and community. Philadelphians are gathering untold stories from their neighborhoods to create new, interdisciplinary public artworks.
Cultural Properties highlights local folklore and neighborhood histories as key to civic engagement and empowerment in an age of changing landscapes, gentrification, and so-called urban renewal.
Check out our work online, at our Manayunk studio, and around the city as we share art and ideas on how to make it better!
Listen now to Call a COSACOSA original album release!
Call, an album of 14 new protest songs, combines the narrative power of 8 Philadelphia songwriters of color with the artistry of over 30 area singers and musicians. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the album is a project of COSACOSA art at large, Inc.
Call explores issues from police brutality to mental health, from bodily autonomy to housing insecurity, from the school-to-prison pipeline to the power of Black culture. Individual tracks are written from varied perspectives and in diverse musical genres, including neo soul, jazz, R&B, folk, and gospel.
Participating songwriters include Jay Fluellen, Keisha Hutchins, Homer Jackson, Namarah, Victor Rodriguez, Jr., Venissa Santi, James Solomon, and Cassendre Xavier. The album was recorded and produced by Anthony Tidd of TidbiT SonoS, Homer Jackson of Philadelphia Jazz Project, and Chris Ploss of Sunwood Recording. Album cover art is by Shae Payne.
We're so proud to announce the official release of Kin/Folk/Lore, a community-led history project organized by GVGK Tang!
Explore Volume 1: Community... a digital exhibit, album series, and more! sites.google.com/view/kinfolklore
Kin/Folk/Lore offers a grassroots, translocal approach to 21st storytelling. Residents forge unlikely connections while considering changing landscapes, core values, and hopes that define their lives past and present.
Funding was provided by Spring Point Partners, PA Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional support was provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and Independence Foundation.