We Here Garden Party with KCT Community Garden

Saturday, July 27, 2024  | 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm 

(Rain Date  8/3/24)

3236 Kensington Ave, Philadelphia PA 19134

Join us for a community garden party to celebrate the permanent installation of artist Roberto Lugo’s monumental 11-foot public sculpture at KCT Community Garden as part of the We Here project. This outdoor sculpture, designed by Roberto Lugo, embodies the spirit of the community, integrating pattern designs and other input from Kensington residents. The garden party event will feature food, music, fun, and live pottery demonstrations by Roberto Lugo. We Here is a two-year project spearheaded by Mural Arts’ Porch Light program, a collaborative effort with the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, which has worked to broaden access to the arts in Kensington since 2017. Inspired by Lugo’s journey as a professional artist who grew up in Kensington, We Here emphasizes youth engagement through pottery.

“The We Here project is about illuminating the obscured familial ties and the unique vernacular of Kensington,” explains We Here Community Advisory Council member, Tyler Kline. “Rob Lugo, one of the neighborhood’s proudest sons, is sharing the interior maps this neighborhood has drawn in his heart, and creating a cipher design lexicon of Kensington’s hopes and dreams painted on epically proportioned vessels, allowing for interaction in the Kensington we deserve, the Kensington we see as the sun sets over Somerset and the golden hour rays of the solar eye finger through the cinematic structures of the El.”

“The KCT Garden is a profound site to house these Vessels, a pollinator corridor and native meadow sprouting from the fertile marrow of the Corridor,” Tyler continues. “As an artist, being a part of this project has given me an unprecedented education in the endurance, resilience, and staggering if difficult beauty of one of the most unique cultures and locations on the globe.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Mural Arts Philadelphia to unveil a masterpiece at the community garden — a pottery vessel crafted by the talented Ruberto Lugo, a proud product of the Kensington neighborhood,” said Adriana Abizadeh, Executive Director of Kensington Corridor Trust. “This collaboration not only celebrates art but also honors our vibrant local heritage, infusing our shared spaces with the beauty of creativity and the richness of our community’s stories.”