Day 4: The Village

The Angel Wall at the Village

Class started again today, and it started off with a field trip. Our class took the train to North Philadelphia and visited the Arts & Humanities village located in the neighborhood. We met with Johnny, who is originally from San Francisco, and he took us around the village and told us about it. The village was originally started in the 1960s by Arthur Hall who provided African dance and drum classes as a way to get kids off the streets. Then in the 1980s barefoot artist, Lily Yeh, joined the village and decided to make the village a tranquil place using art. She, along with Big Man, who was a drug user and seller from the neighborhood, began to change the village through art. They made many ceramic sculptures, ceramic paintings, paintings in general, and more. Kids became more involved in the village, and even when Lily Yeh left and Big Man died in 2005, they continued the artwork. Lily Yeh is coming back to help with the village, so there will hopefully be more resources because of it. There is also an urban garden in the village, and the village provides resources and food for kids who are hungry in the neighborhood.

The urban garden

After visiting the village, we said our goodbyes to Johnny and walked back to the train station. Along the way Michael asked us our observations about the neighborhood and the contradictions we noticed. Such as two billboards, one advertising a Big Mac and the other advertising Keystone. Another contradiction was that one side of the neighborhood was falling apart while another side of the neighborhood were nice places for rent because Temple University is no longer a strictly commuter school. 

For the second session, we watched parts of the movie "Modern Times" with Charlie Chaplin and we analyzed different scenes of the movie. Afterwards, we split into groups by segregation. Meaning, the men were in one group with Michael, the Asian people were in another group with Julia, the women of color were with Meghna, and the White women were split up between Nicole and Lamas. 

My group consisted of only two other girls besides Meghna and I. Meghna took us out for ice cream and we all sat outside and talked about our lives and how we are felling about this class. Meghna was very personable and listened to everything we had to say.

After class, all of Summer Discovery went to the movies. I watched The Heat, which is a comedy movie starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. After the movie, everyone went in search of dinner and I went to my room to prepare for our trip to New York  tomorrow.

Today has been long, but enjoyable nonetheless. As always, I have a lot to think about; this class does that to you.