Printmaking by the People
What’s It All About?
What would the Declaration of Independence say if it could be written today?
What visions do Philadelphians have for the promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, and Philadelphia is central to the story, as the city where the Declaration of Independence was written and signed.
Mural Arts is marking the moment with Printmaking by the People, Philadelphia’s largest public art and community engagement project inspired by this important milestone.
Over the past two years, Mural Arts organized dozens of printmaking workshops throughout the city, at which more than 1,000 participants made posters expressing their ideas for a reimagined Declaration of Independence. The workshops involved discussions about essential aspects of freedom, the importance of printing in communicating and mobilizing during the Revolutionary era, and the urgency of poster-making as a means of advocating for change.
This year, you can see people’s visions in an exhibition at the Free Library’s Heim Center for Cultural and Civic Engagement, opening on April 16; a temporary public art installation in May (stay tuned for details); and a signature mural, to be installed later this year.
Then, come take part in a pop-up poster-making workshop on June 5 at Cherry Street Pier, co-hosted by the Association for Public Art’s Let Freedom Ring project.
Read about what it was like to attend a Printmaking by the People workshop in this blog post!
Read about the project launch last year in this blog post.
About the Workshops
Printmaking by the People‘s mission was to reach as many Philadelphians as possible through its free community workshops.
Over the course of two years, Mural Arts organized 35 workshops in more than a dozen neighborhoods, with more than 1,000 participants. Of these workshops, nine were with schools or youth education programs, seven were at branch libraries, and eight were public pop-ups. We collaborated with the Martin Luther King Day of Service, the Young People’s Continental Congress, and the organizers of Juneteenth and the Cherry Street Pier Independence Day celebration. All of the workshops (except those held at schools) were open to the public.
While our public workshops have concluded, we are still happy to collaborate with organizations that would like to host a Printmaking by the People workshop in their community. Contact Lindsey Rosenberg at lindsey.rosenberg@muralarts.org to learn more about how we can work together and the costs of a workshop.
Sharswood
The Gayborhood
Spruce Hill
Kensington
Mt. Airy
North Central
Tacony
Bella Vista
Rittenhouse
Hunting Park
Riverfront East
Passyunk
Oxford Circle
University City
:
Kingsessing Library, Kingsessing
Parkway Central Library, Franklintown
Independence Library, Old City
Greater Olney Library, Olney
Fox Chase Library, Fox Chase
Wynnefield Library, Overbrook
Joseph E Coleman Northwest Regional Library, Germantown
About the Artists and Project Team
Since 2024, we have hired more than 30 different printmakers, artists and other creatives to design, lead and assist in our workshops. We thank them for providing their unique expertise to teach printmaking to Philadelphians and to give people a platform for expressing their civic and creative voice in this crucial time!
Printmaking Methods Taught
Letterpress:
- Vandercook and Provisional Press
- Typesetting and Pre-set Type
Screen Printing:
- Monoprints, monoprint over collage
- Pre-burned screens, layering
- Created an image with transparencies & Sharpie
Relief:
- Indentation on a foam sheet with a pencil
- E-Z cut Linoleum
Cyanotype
Mimeograph on a Fax Machine
Stamping
Gelli Printing
