Places of Power - Villa Africana Colobó Garden
Artists: Iris Brown, Norris Square Neighborhood Project & Anula Shetty and Michael Kuetemeyer, Termite TV Collective
Category: AR Installation
Location: Villa Africana Colobó Garden, 2267 N Palethorp St
Date & Time: Saturday, July 26th - Reception: 12-2PM , Open Hours/Tours: 11-6PM
Places of Power is an immersive AR/VR documentary, public art, and community media project that celebrates the West African diaspora in Puerto Rican culture and the legacy of Grupo Motivos, a group of Puerto Rican women who transformed vacant city lots into vibrant community gardens. Project Directors Anula Shetty, Iris Brown, and Michael Kuetemeyer facilitated workshops with long-term residents to share the oral histories and memories of the Latine community in North Philadelphia. Come and explore the augmented reality artwork and stories embedded in this special garden. The project is a collaboration of Termite TV Collective and the Norris Square Neighborhood Project. Visit the interactive virtual tour at https://termite.org/colobo
Cultural Workers
Iris Brown
Iris Brown is a remarkable woman dedicated to the rich exchange of culture, agriculture, and food, amplifying this diasporic connection between her Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia and her hometown of Loíza. In the early 1980s, Iris Brown co-founded Grupo Motivos, bringing together Puerto Rican women from different parts of Puerto Rico, united by the desire to use their surroundings to create beautiful spaces for their children and neighbors, ultimately converting abandoned lots into award-winning gardens and ancestral education sites.She is the visionary force behind the Norris Square Neighborhood Project gardens, including El Batey, Las Parcelas, the Butterfly Garden, Raíces, and Villa Africana Colobó.
Anula Shetty
Anula Shetty is an award-winning filmmaker and new media artist. She was an artist in residence at SEPTA transit, as part of Public Works a program of Forman Arts Initiative and Mural Arts. She is a recipient of a Pew Fellowship and a Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) Fellowship. She received a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award for her art and social change work. Anula received her MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University and serves on the board of the Alliance for Media Arts and Culture. She is a proud member of A-Doc, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Bitchitra Collective and is a co-director of the artist run video collective Termite TV. Her work has been screened at festivals and museums including MoMA, The Flaherty Film Seminar, National Museum of Women In the Arts and the Pacific Film Archive. Current projects include Cosmic Egg, a poetic documentary set against the surreal landscape of egg harvesting, transnational surrogacy and the desire for procreation.
Mike Kuetemeyer
Mike Kuetemeyer is an experimental documentary media artist and Associate Professor in the Film & Media Arts department at Temple University, whose work pushes the boundaries of immersive and socially engaged art. A recipient of both a Fulbright Scholar Award and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Kuetemeyer is also a co-founder and co-director of the Termite TV Collective, an artist-run non-profit dedicated to fostering experimental and activist media. Kuetemeyer's artistic exploration centers on socially engaged immersive media, utilizing cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to forge innovative, participatory art experiences with diverse communities.