Shop Penn

With world-class museums, galleries, and performance spaces, University City is home to tons of exhibitions and events for everyone to enjoy, both in-person and virtually. The “Shop Penn Playlist” is a snapshot of the must-see experiences throughout the district this month, as you put some spring in your step and more play in your days.

Jessica Vaughn: Our Primary Focus Is To Be Successful -  Institute for Contemporary Art
All Month
              Within this exhibition, Vaughn considers the intersections between late twentieth- and twenty-first-century work culture, modular architecture—its promise of malleability and universality—and the marginalized workers who have been rendered invisible within these workspaces. Vaughn transforms and repurposes employee training videos, career exploration tools, government occupational reports, and workplace lighting fixtures into photographs, sculptures, paintings, and video that urge us to reconsider the systems that shape the spaces where work is conducted.

Many Voices, Many Visions – Arthur Ross Gallery
All Month
              Many Voices, Many presents both historical and contemporary images that reflect on issues of humanity, the environment, governance, justice, resilience, and social change. The works of art on view resonate with these timely issues. The paintings, prints, sculptures, and photographs are insightful, compassionate, and at times provocative. From William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress to Honoré Daumier’s Les Marionettes politiques to Shirin Neshat’s Ghada, to David Driskell’s Mask Series II, these artists have chronicled their social and political times. In many instances, their art has been a harbinger of change.

 HopeBoykinDance – Annenberg Center (Virtual Event)
 March 11
              Hailed as a “force of nature on the stage” (The New York Times) and beloved for her twenty-year tenure with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hope Boykin makes her choreographic Philadelphia debut. A former PHILADANCO dancer, Boykin has graced the Annenberg stage many times, and now returns alongside five other dancers for the world premiere of Redefine US, from the inside OUT, a work that seeks to change the words and ideas we use to describe ourselves.

100,000 Folds: A Collaborative Sculpture Project to Commemorate Those Lost by the Coronavirus Pandemic – The Rotunda (Virtual Event)
March 18
              Join 100,000 Folds in honoring and mourning COVID-19 victims through origami. This community sculpture project is folding 100,000 pieces of paper - one for each of the first 100,000 deaths in the United States from the pandemic. During this event, gather virtually with artist Joanna Hutchinson to learn to make the folded pieces, and build community while folding with others. The folded paper units will be assembled into larger sculptures to be displayed in Philadelphia upon completion when it is safe to do so. Participants will receive a package of 50 custom cut sheets of paper to fold during this event, sent to the mailing address provided through the USPS. After the event, participants are asked to send their folded work to the artist by USPS.

Queens, Warriors and Archaeologists: Women of the Penn Museum – Penn Museum (Virtual Event)
March 20
              Women are often invisible in our accounts of the past, overshadowed by more famous men. This virtual program explores ways to find women through archaeology and anthropology, tracing stories of famous and not-so-famous women in the Penn Museum, as well as tales of adventurous female archaeologists who have excavated ancient sites and translated undeciphered scripts. Join us as we illustrate how different societies think of womanhood and gender, and see how women are represented and self-represent across time and space.

Jazz Combos – Penn Museum (Virtual Event)
March 21
              How does the love of music get passed down from generation to generation? “Multigenerational Music” asks parents and their children about changes in the music industry, the process of becoming a musician, and the gift of music to future generations. Come hear from a local Philadelphia family about the intertwined nature of music-making and familial love.