Flores de Libertad (Flowers of Freedom) Artist Workshops

Flores de Libertad (Flowers of Freedom) - Artist Workshops
Michelle Angela Ortiz – Seguimos Caminando (We Keep Walking)
Monument Lab: A Public Art and History Project
Mural Arts Philadelphia

Join artist Michelle Angela Ortiz at the Monument Lab Research Field Office at the Barnes Foundation this Fall for a series of free paper flower workshops, as a part of Seguimos Caminando (We Keep Walking). Ortiz is making thousands of paper flowers, a tradition passed down by her maternal grandmother, with messages of freedom for the families detained at the Berks Detention Center. Over a thousand flowers will be created and assembled in a creative action at City Hall in late October with the Shut Down Berks Coalition. She will honor mothers previously or currently unjustly detained at Berks Detention Center, a prison outside of Philadelphia for immigrant families. Ortiz will adorn the windows of the Field Office with the flowers to prepare them for City Hall, and then re-create this creative action in the Barnes Foundation Light Hall on Sunday, November 5.

About Seguimos Caminando (We Keep Walking)

Throughout her body of work, Michelle Angela Ortiz engages with experiences of immigration in Philadelphia, especially through family stories and intergenerational histories. For Monument Lab, Ortiz’s Seguimos Caminando (We Keep Walking) imagines the gates of City Hall as a space of imaginative projection, juxtaposed with hundreds of sculptures on the building that mark the historic and mythic past of the city. In a series of animated projections held on Wednesday and Friday evenings throughout the exhibition, Ortiz will honor mothers previously or currently unjustly detained at Berks Detention Center, a prison outside of Philadelphia for immigrant families. The animated images in her moving monument originate from compiled writings from two mothers sharing their stories while detained at Berks. Ortiz worked on Seguimos Caminando with the Shut Down Berks Coalition and the mothers detained at Berks.

Workshop Dates:

Saturday, October 7th (1-4pm)- Plein Air Day
Saturday, October 14th (1-4pm)
Friday, October 20th (6-9:30 pm)- Young Professionals
Saturday, October 21st (1-4pm)

Preparation for the Creative Action:

Wednesday, October 25th (12 pm) Creative Action at City Hall
Sunday, November 5th (9-11:30) Re-assemble the flowers at the Barnes

See the Moving Monument at City Hall:
Every Wednesday and Friday 8-10 pm at the north side gates of City Hall till November 17th