Civic Views

Civic Views combines photographs of city government office windows and excerpts from interviews with a wide range of civil servants to map their diverse views on a changing Philadelphia. Photographs are reproduced at a 1-to-1 scale and hung to exact specifications that replicate the experience of looking out of each window, opening these tucked-away offices to the public’s view. The photographs are paired with a selection of anonymous interview excerpts on text panels that highlight the pride, complexity, and even contradictions endemic to public sector work. The interviews chart how employees came to work for city government, reflections on the work they perform, how family and friends perceive their careers, and their wishes for Philadelphia and its citizens. These elements are mounted on a series of scaffolding armatures that create an abstracted map of Philadelphia and orient the public to where these buildings are located across the city. Taken together, the project endeavors to humanize the public sector while using scaffolding to symbolize the public attitudes and urban landscape that are constantly changing in the background of the city government’s work. In a moment when the public sector is increasingly vulnerable to scrutiny, restructuring, and privatization, Civic Views champions the people, buildings, and ethics that keep city government running. The project seeks to shake off a monolithic view of government to better understand it at a human scale, hoping to reignite a deep value for what we call “public.” Like many of Mural Arts Philadelphia’s projects, Civic Views presents thoughtful ways for experiencing public art as an interdisciplinary effort engaged in many conversations at once—history, urbanism, photography, architecture, civil service, and public space.

The exhibition was presented in conjunction with a series of public programs, including:

Opening Reception (May 23, 2025)
Speaking program and performance by the Municipal Employees Choral Ensemble.

Civic Views: The Image of the City (May 28, 2025)
A conversation on photography’s relationship to the public’s imagination of the urban landscape, local photographic history, and the diverse powers of representation. This talk included Dr. Michelle Smiley, Curator of Photography at the Library of Congress and Dr. LaCharles Ward, Curator of Photography and Film at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Civic Views: Public Sector Office Workshop (May 30, 2025)
Public Sector Office, a self-organized group of public sector employees who collectively document uncanny government office spaces, led a workshop for local civil servants. The workshop welcomed reflection on each participant’s findings of eccentric and idiosyncratic artifacts in government offices, using the Civic Views photographic installation at City Hall as a jumping off point. Participants connected with one another across government bureaucracies and inspected the exhibit for tensions that arise in public sector spaces.

City Hall Serenade (June 2, 2025)
Performance by members of the Municipal Employees Choral Ensemble.

Civic Views: The Form of the City (June 4, 2025)
A conversation between State Senator Nikil Saval and art and urban studies scholar Dr. Shannon Mattern on the architecture, design, and infrastructure of the city. They discussed the reflexive relationship between spaces of civil servant work, the maintenance and delivery of public services, and the shifting perception of the public sector.

City Hall Serenade (June 9, 2025)
Performance by members of the Municipal Employees Choral Ensemble.

Panel Discussion: The Labor of the City and Closing Reception (June 11, 2025)
A conversation championing the work of public sector employees led by labor organizer Paul Prescod and Librarian Julie Zaebst. Conversation was followed by a Closing Reception for Civic Views, including a brief speaking program and performance by the Municipal Employees Choral Ensemble.

The full scope of the project includes visits to over twenty municipal agencies, over thirty staff interviews and over forty window views. The project has been produced in close collaboration with the City of Philadelphia, which has graciously opened its doors to Martínez Poppe’s camera and microphone.
After its debut in the City Hall Courtyard, a selection of Civic Views photographs will migrate across the street to long-term public view at the Municipal Services Building’s Concourse Level in partnership with the Department of Public Property. The project will also lead to a substantial book documenting the full index of photographs Martínez Poppe captured, as well as essays from leading artists, scholars, and the project’s organizers exploring art’s relationship to the city. The book project will be announced with additional details later this year.

Civic Views is organized by Jameson Paige, Curator of Public Practice.

Philadelphia’s civil servants are as diverse as the city they work for. While the journey to public service is varied, the commitment to it is shared by the individuals I interviewed across a vast array of positions.
— Emilio Martínez Poppe

City Agencies included in Civic Views:

-Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority
-City Archives
-City Planning Commission
-Creative Philadelphia
-Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services
-Department of Parks and Recreation
-Department of Public Property
-Department of Revenue
-Department of Streets (Sanitation)
-District Attorney’s Office
-Fire Department
-Free Library of Philadelphia
-Office of Children and Families
-Office of Economic Opportunity
-Office of the Mayor
-Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability
-Philadelphia City Council
-Philadelphia Housing Authority
-Philadelphia Police Department
-Philadelphia Water Department
-School District of Philadelphia

About the Artist
Emilio Martínez Poppe is an artist who is concerned with the right to the city and the struggle of public memory. Through a social and research-led practice spanning photography, sculpture, text, and installations, he explores the spatial mechanisms and ideological conditions that reproduce state and capital infrastructures. Martínez Poppe has previously exhibited work at Petrine, Paris; the Queens Museum, New York; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia; and de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam. Martínez Poppe earned an MFA and MCP from the University of Pennsylvania, a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art, was a studio fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program, and a member of BFAMFAPhD. He is a member of the Pinko collective and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Graduate Communications Design department at Pratt Institute. His work has been supported through artist residencies at Abrons Arts Center, Pratt Institute, NEW INC, SOMA Mexico, and through grants/fellowships from The Laundromat Project, The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, PennPraxis, and the UPenn Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. Martínez Poppe received the Charles Addams Memorial Prize and the Paul Davidoff Award from the University of Pennsylvania.

Location Note: Temporary project no longer on view at this location. A selection of Civic Views photographs have migrated across the street to long-term public view at the Municipal Services Building’s Concourse Level (1401 John F. Kennedy Blvd) in partnership with the Department of Public Property.

Read the blog about the project, which includes an interview with the artist: https://muralarts.org/stories/what-is-a-civic-view/