Festival

Founder's Hall, Girard College | Photo: Joseph E.B. Elliott

Hidden City Philadelphia celebrates the power of place by animating remarkable but obscured heritage sites with the imagination of creative artists, and connecting these spaces to new people, resources and practical functions.

Through this work we transform Philadelphia’s dormant and lesser-known places into locations of greater cultural, educational, commercial, and civic activity.

Hidden City started with a very successful five-week, nine-site festival in spring 2009—the product of four years of planning with the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia and many artistic partners. Commissioned artists from various disciplines and media created site- specific work interpreting the memory of remarkable heritage sites throughout Philadelphia. The festival featured work by such artists as Stan Douglas, David Lang, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Steve Roden, Sanford Biggers, Wally Cardona, John Phillips/Carolyn Healy, Todd Reynolds, Phil Kline, Steven Earl Weber, Aleksandra Mir, as well as local ensembles and presenters, such as Network for New Music, Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, Leah Stein Dance Company, and Ars Nova Workshop.

This festival was created as a project of Peregrine Arts, a nonprofit multidisciplinary arts producer. With the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation we are now re- launching Hidden City Philadelphia not just as a quadrennial festival, but as its own organization with ongoing programming, such as the Hidden City Daily, an online magazine exploring the intersection of people and place, regular tours and happenings, and community initiatives that continue our work at past festival sites and their stakeholders.

We’re planning our next citywide festival for May/June 2013. The festival will encompass roughly twelve heritage sites within the city and will be open to the public for six weeks. Every site is staffed by a site manager and volunteer docents with training in interpreting both the art installations and history of the site and its community. A central hub provides visitor support and a location for shuttle transportation. We’re anticipating up to 40,000 visitors to our next festival and another extraordinary roster of participating artists.