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221 W. Upsal Street
Jesse A. Tilge House, Mount Airy, PA
 
 
 
 
House Museum conceptualizes a “landmark exhibition” in Philadelphia’s historic residence, the Jesse A. Tilge House, located at 221 W. Upsal Street in Mount Airy, PA. Twelve artists, working across varying disciplines, have been invited to respond to architect George T. Pearson’s 1887 Queen Anne style home and the legacy of past owners, with a site-specific artwork. The exhibition explores how an artistic practice can be an alternative form of historic preservation, by surfacing complexities embedded within the physical and conceptual history of a place. The immersive installation will feature sculptures, paintings, photography, and performance—all seamlessly integrated into the 19th century framework that qualified the site for landmark designation by the Philadelphia Historical Commission in 2022.
 

The one-week exhibition offers a momentary view into the historic property and the ephemeral artworks built specifically for it. Opening day, will include family-friendly programs, local hors d'oeuvres, and special offerings from community partners. The exhibition is organized by House Museum director Evan Curtis Charles Hall and is supported by David S. Traub, co-founder of Save Our Sites, and promotional partner Preservation Alliance For Greater Philadelphia.

 
 
 

Emmanuela Soria RuizEmmanuela Soria Ruiz

Emmanuela Soria Ruiz is a Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary artist and educator. Her work explores hegemonies embedded in personal histories, mythology, literature, and architecture using sculpture, video, installation, and performance. She holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from The University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been exhibited at Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia, EFA Project Space in New York, at the Los Angeles Contemporary Archives, and Portland Contemporary Art Center, Kunstraum Leuphana and F2 Gallery in Madrid. 

 

Jessi Ali LinJessi Ali Lin

Jessi Ali Lin is an artist working with and through sculpture, video, performance, and embodiment. Her work exploits the notion of positionality both in terms of physical position and the multivalence of identity as central to her process. Drawing from feminist history, Minimalism, and performance art, Lin examines the relationship between the performance of the self, its fragmented nature, and its location within the social and built environment. Lin holds a BA in Art and Art History from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Jane FentressJane Fentress

Jane Fentress is an artist and educator living in Philadelphia. She makes drawings and sculptures and teaches high school art. Her recent interests include birds, sieves, circles, and fire. She is certified in Private Academic K-12 Art Teaching and has committed to facilitating a classroom experience that accommodates a broad range of learning styles and interest levels. She holds an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and a BA in Visual Art and English Literature from the University of Chicago. 

Aislinn Pentecost-FarrenAislinn Pentecost-Farren

Aislinn Pentecost-Farren (www.aislinn.info) is an artist, curator, and public historian. Her recent work sites the psychic weight of the climate crisis in objects, structures, and collections from the origins of the catastrophe. She has worked with Eastern State Penitentiary, National Museum of American Jewish History, Mural Arts Philadelphia, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, Bartram’s Garden, Hidden City Philadelphia, Glen Foerd on the Delaware, Philadelphia Lazaretto, Fairmount Park Conservancy, and the Riverfront North Partnership, all in Philadelphia, as well as the Arts Council of Wales, and Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, NC.

Antara MorfeAntara Morfe

Antara Morfe is a visual artist and herbalist who reaches into the symbolism, history and etymology of words, numbers, plants, and animals as a way to reveal a rich history, power and significance. Through painting, jewelry-making and plant medicine, her work intends to explore perception and how this is informed by a viewer’s culture, experiences, perspective and or level of consciousness; alongside other factors that create the lens through which one experiences the world. She holds a BFA from the Cooper Union, NY.

Silas McDonoughSilas McDonough

Silas McDonough earned his BFA in painting from Western State Colorado University and his MFA at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He has been a resident at Red Gate Residency in Beijing, Vermont Studio Center, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His conglomerate sculptures, which incorporate a wide range of materials and found objects, blur the distinction between the organic and industrial; living and inanimate.

Austin MayerAustin Mayer

Austin Mayer (b. San Diego, CA in 1988) is an artist and designer based in Philadelphia, PA. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from The Cooper Union (2018). His practice explores our relationship between art and architecture through a photographic history but/and also through words and sounds themselves. With others, he collaborates with art historian and critical theorist Kaja Silverman on "a place for being together with art" located at BlueWorldGallery.com (2022-23). His work has been installed on various walls/floors/grounds of New York, Philadelphia and the Internet.

Nina SiniakovaNina Siniakova

Nina Siniakova enjoys an international career as a composer and a pianist. Her music explores eternal subjects of beauty, love, life, and death. She has appeared at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Symphony Space New York, Harvard University, Beethoven House Bonn, Academy of Music in Philadelphia, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Zink Jazz Bar New York. She received her education at Minsk Glinka Music College, St-Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory and Musikhochschule Cologne. NinaSiniakova.com

Atisha FordyceAtisha Fordyce

Atisha Fordyce is a multi-disciplinary artist working and residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While referencing family traditions under-recognized in the art world, Atisha holds them in high regard. Her investment with the notions of home and family as subjects create ways to access memories. Her drawings and photographs hold these memories for safe-keeping. Atisha holds a BFA in Fine Art from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art and an MFA from the Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University. Atisha.Store

     
     

221 W. Upsal Street, Room 3.221 W. Upsal Street, Room 3.

 

 

“It is built of gray stone, in architecture Queen Anne, with here and there a suggestion of Gothic and Colonial; thus, the roof, supported by carved wooden pillars resting on a stone base, is Colonial in design, while the vestibule of stone suggests Gothic ideas. In any description of general effect of Mr. Tilge’s place, the velvety turf, the shrubberies and the splendid trees, to which the slopes and inequalities of the ground give a fine effect; the luxurious creepers climbing up the walls and fences; the ivy which the climate allows to grow almost in perfection, must not be forgotten.” Inquirer, 1893

 

 

House Museum Site Visit #2. April 8, 2023.House Museum Site Visit #2. April 8, 2023.

 

Exhibition Material:

 

 

Artworks by Michael Boyd and Emmanuela Soria RuizArtworks by Michael Boyd and Emmanuela Soria Ruiz

 

 

 

 

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House Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, CA, USA.

 

Interested in contributing a vacant site or partnering with House? Please contact info [at] house.museum

   

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"In my Father's house there are many dwelling places." John 14:2