Exhibits & Events

Join us for a very special launch celebration for the Healing Verse Germantown Public Art Exhibition! Opening April 11, the exhibition features 19 public art poems by Germantown community members about healing from the impacts of gun violence. Let's celebrate these poets with remarks, food, poetry activations, guided tours, and community.

The Friends Free Library (5418 Germantown Ave) and Ubuntu Fine Art (5423 Germantown Ave), directly across the street from each other, will both host activities during this celebration.

Come see the wide-ranging display of public artworks including a collage poster series, video installations, augmented reality constellations, interactive floral offerings, a stained glass panel installation on a SEPTA bus shelter, a wrapped SEPTA bus, and more.

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Background

Healing Verse Germantown: The Streets Are Talking is a temporary poetry and public art project supported by the City of Philadelphia through Creative Philadelphia, and a winner of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge grant. Addressing the urgent civic issue of gun violence, Philadelphia is one of just eight cities to win this cycle of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge.

From 2024-2025, Healing Verse Germantown engaged Germantown residents in 10 poetry workshops stewarded by Trapeta B. Mayson and Yolanda Wisher. For over a year, a selection of those poems have been featured weekly on the Healing Verse Poetry Line (1-855-POEMRX2), a 24/7 toll-free line offering mental health resources. Now, 19 poems written by Germantown residents during the workshops will have been curated by Rob Blackson into works of temporary public art, taking over the neighborhood and cultivating peace and resistance against gun violence in Germantown and throughout Philadelphia.

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A wheelchair accessible entrance is available in the rear of the Friends Free Library and there will be personnel available to guide to the accessible entrance. Ubuntu Fine Art's entrance is wheelchair accessible.