Making Space: Leeway @ 25 Opening Reception & Conversation

Thursday, September 20, 2018 5:30 pm-8:30 pm

[ Moore College of Art & Design - 1916 Race St, Philadelphia, PA 19103 ]

Click [here] to RSVP

A Special Presentation of Conversations@Moore, featuring Zanele Muholi and the Women’s Mobile Museum, produced in partnership with the Leeway Foundation, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center and The Galleries at Moore

September 20 | 5:30pm - Artist Talk; 7:00 - Reception

Join us as we mark the opening of Making Space: Leeway @ 25, an exhibition celebrating Leeway Foundation’s twenty-five years of supporting artists, cultural producers and organizers in Philadelphia and beyond. The evening will kick off with Michelle Coffey in conversation with Zanele Muholi and local artists from the Women’s Mobile Museum, followed immediately by the exhibition’s opening reception.

Moore’s Socially-Engaged Art MA/MFA program has worked with Leeway and the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (PPAC) to present this dialogue with acclaimed South African photographer Zanele Muholi, who has developed a new project with PPAC and 10 local artists that make up The Women’s Mobile Museum. 

This event is free and open to the public—registration is preferred but not required. Please RSVP at leewayat25opening.eventbrite.com. 

Zanele Muholi

Muholi is a South African visual activist and photographer. In 2002 co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW) and in 2009 founded Inkanyiso (www.inkanyiso.org), a forum for queer and visual (activists) media.

In 2003 Muholi studied Advanced Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg. In 2009 completed an MFA: Documentary Media at Ryerson University, Toronto.  Muholi is also an Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts/Hochschule für Künste Bremen, Germany and has won numerous awards including Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from France Embassy (2017); the ICP Infinity Award for Documentary and Photojournalism (2016); Africa’S Out! Courage and Creativity Award (2016); the Outstanding International Alumni Award from Ryerson University (2016).Muholi’s self-proclaimed mission is ‘to re-write a black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond’. Muholi’s community work includes training and co-facilitating photography workshops for women in townships and beyond.

Some exhibitions include: Somnyama Ngonyama at Autograph ABP, London (2017/8 traveling show); Performa, NYC (2017); Zanele Muholi Homecoming: Durban Art Gallery (2017); Faces and Phases 11at Market Workshop, Johannesburg (2017); Systematically Personae at the FotoFocus Biennal, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (2016). Faces and Phases series shown at the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Italy (2013); dOCUMENTA 13, Germany (2012).

Muholi’s publications are Somnyama Ngonyama (Aperture 2018); Faces and Phases 2006-14 (Steidl/The Walther Collection). Zanele Muholi: African Women Photographers #1 (Casa Africa and La Fábrica, 2011); Faces and Phases (Prestel, 2010); and Only half the Picture (Stevenson, 2006).

Michelle Coffey

As Executive Director of the Lambent Foundation, Michelle Coffey designs, implements and furthers the strategic agenda, leadership and vision of Lambent Foundation. Through innovative grant making and projects, Lambent Foundation supports the intersections of contemporary arts and culture as critical strategies for social change. Lambent’s global grant making provides critical general operating support for artist-centered organizations in the visual, performance and alternative media fields in New York, New Orleans and Nairobi.  

Prior to the creation of Lambent Foundation in January 2009, Ms. Coffey was Director of Starry Night Fund and Senior Philanthropic Advisor at Tides Foundation.  With a global lens, her areas of focus included Human Rights, Women/Girls, Criminal Justice Reform, Arts and Culture and HIV/AIDS.  Michelle Coffey joined Tides as a Program Officer in the New York Office in 2001. Prior to joining Tides, she worked on national cultural policy issues and served as a Program Officer for the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN.   In addition, she currently serves on the boards of The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, the Brownsville Multi-Service Family Health Care Center in East New York, and most recently, Creative Capital Foundation.

Women’s Mobile Museum

The Women’s Mobile Museum (WMM) is a year-long collaboration between the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Zanele Muholi and ten Philadelphia women who have been selected for a paid media arts apprenticeship. WMM raises questions of representation and access by re-imagining a museum where women’s equity is central for the transformative experience of participants and audiences. The ten women selected for the apprenticeship and collaboration with Muholi are: Davelle Barnes, Shasta Bady, Tash Billington, Afaq Mahmoud, Iris Maldonado, Danielle Morris, Shana Roberts, Carrie-Anne Shimborski, Muffy Ashley Torres, and Andrea Walls. From September 22 through November 17, 2018, the Women’s Mobile Museum will tour two community centers in Philadelphia: Dixon House in Point Breeze and Juniata Park Boys and Girls Club in Juniata Park. For more information: www.philaphotoarts.org or follow WMM @womensmobilemuseum

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