Heart of Kensington Creates
About the Project
Heart of Kensington Creates is a cross-sector, community-centered arts initiative focused on collective impact—lifting each neighborhood to celebrate its identity while building on its shared Kensington pride. The initiative, in collaboration with Councilperson Quetcy Lozada’s Office and Impact Services, aims to create a series of murals, art installations, and activations along Kensington Avenue between the Huntingdon Street Station and the Tioga Street Station, culminating in August 2026.
The public art component of the project will include six large-scale murals, six smaller-scale murals/art installations, three local gallery activations, a community wide paint activity to be displayed on the Septa “El” line (the Gusset Plate Project), and the inclusion of the Afromation Avenue series, a collection of curated positive affirmation street signs personalized by predominantly Black/African American communities throughout Philadelphia.
More About the Gusset Plate Project
Color Me Back, Mural Arts’ same-day work-and-pay program, will lead the charge on a community-wide painting project called the Gusset Plate Project. Named after the “gusset plates,” triangular-shaped support structures below the “El” train, which incorporates a modular painting method to make highly collaborative art. The plan is to have each triangle-shaped section painted by one or more Kensington community members, leaving their own unique mark along the SEPTA line from Huntingdon to Tioga, adding up to hundreds of works of community-made art.
More About Afromation Avenue
Afromation Avenue is a community street art initiative and ongoing collection of curated positive affirmation street signs, personalized by predominantly Black and African American communities throughout Philadelphia. A public art project “for the neighborhood by the neighborhood,” Afromation Avenue engages local Black artists and community members, and brings the resulting artworks into the streetscapes of historically Black communities.
The 2026 iteration of Afromation Avenue is the project’s fourth cohort since 2022, with new sign artwork from project founders Brittni Jennings and Kristin Kelly, as well as local artists Shalina Mitchell and Marrita Richardson. The artwork will be on view in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood in 2026 as part of Heart of Kensington Creates.
Upcoming Programs & Events
Saturday, March 28 | 11 am – 1 pm
Gusset Plate Project @ Safe Hub’s Spring Clean Up
Safe Hub, 1020 E. Venango Street, Philadelphia
Thursday, April 9 | 4–6 pm
Gusset Plate Project @ Porch Light Exhibition
Kensington Storefront, 3208 Kensington Avenue, Philadelphia
About Impact Services
Since 1974, Impact Services has been working in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia to help people re-enter the workforce, find stable housing, and help build community. Over the last two decades they have built a continuum of housing services in an effort to end homelessness.
With an action orientation to creating connected, resilient, thriving communities Impact employs a multidimensional approach to systems change investing in both people and place over time. Impact’s work is grounded in the creation of environmental, emotional, and interpersonal safety with the consideration of significant adversity in individual, family, and community histories.
More information here: https://www.impactservices.org/.
About Porch Light & Color Me Back
Mural Arts’ Porch Light program, a joint collaboration with the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, focuses on achieving universal health and wellness among Philadelphians, especially those dealing with mental health issues or trauma. We do this by providing opportunities to contribute to meaningful works of public art.
Porch Light projects are driven by issues that have tangible effects on local communities, such as mental health, substance use, spirituality, unhoused populations, trauma, immigration, war, and neighborhood safety. The targeted outcomes of any Porch Light project include:
- Improvements to the physical environment
- New opportunities for social connections
- Positive changes within a community, such as enhanced unity and empathy among neighbors
- Beneficial effects for participants who have encountered hardship related to the addressed issues
Porch Light does its work in four main arenas:
- Color Me Back: A Same Day Work and Pay program
- Storefronts that are embedded in three neighborhoods in the city: Southeast by Southeast, Northeast Passage and Kensington Storefront
- Provider Sites
- Mural Projects
Color Me Back: A Same Day Work and Pay Program is an innovative initiative that combines participatory art-making and access to social services in a unique model offering individuals who are experiencing economic insecurity an opportunity to earn wages. Designed in partnership with the Scattergood Foundation, SEPTA, the Sheller Family Foundation, and Mental Health Partnerships, the initiative is managed by Mural Arts’ Porch Light community wellness program, a collaboration with the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. Participants are scheduled for four consecutive 3.5 hour shifts, are paid $50 cash and have the opportunity to connect, contribute, and engage with outreach specialists who can link them with support services, including social and/or behavioral health services and potential opportunities for longer-term employment while working in the program.
