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OPPOSITE PAGE: artist collective Rabid Hands created the “Society of Pythagoras” in Powelton Village’s Hawthorne Hall. Exploring the history of the social halls that once called the site home, the collective drew from secret spiritual and fraternal customs. ABOVE: brothers Billy and Steven Dufala’s “Oil and Water” installation sought to “dehab” the architecture and machinery of Globe Dye Works.
Creative Energy Photographs by Dominic Mercier Every four years, the Hidden City Festival takes visitors inside some of Philadelphia’s most fascinating forgotten or little-known spaces. The festival celebrates the power of place through the imagination of contemporary artists, inspiring people to explore the city’s history and imagine new futures for our urban landscape. Artists of diverse disciplines and media create site-specific work that illuminates abandoned, obscure, or inaccessible sites throughout the city. Held in late May through June 2013, the festival featured nine sites of historical and community interest, including several buildings looking for new ideas to bring them back to life, from the vacant and beguiling Germantown Town Hall, to Shivtei Yeshuron, a 19th century row house synagogue in South Philadelphia, to the historic John Glass Wood Turning Company. CONTEXT visited a handful of the sites to give its readers who may have missed the festival a glimpse at the creative energy that the festival brings to the city.
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