Eco-Social Realism: Historic Mural Activations Artist Panel

Join us for an in-depth discussion with the artists behind Eco-Social Realism: Historic Mural Activations, an exhibition bringing four historic Philadelphia murals into dialogue with new site-responsive works.

Hear artists José Ortiz-Pagán, Li Sumpter, Lori Waselchuk, and Ricky Yanas & Grimaldi Baez in conversation with curator Daniel Tucker, as they reflect on the mural sites and their significance within their ongoing work.

The exhibit will be on view at TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image from September 10, 2026 through November 21, 2026, featuring new work inspired by the following murals:

• Forest Green (1996) by Ras Malik, activated by José Ortiz-Pagán
• Cinema Verde (1998) by Dennis Haugh, activated by Ricky Yanas & Grimaldi Baez
• Tropical Landscape (1999) by Diane Keller, activated by Lori Waselchuk
• Tropical Landscape with Waterfall (2000) by Ana Uribe, activated by Li Sumpter

About the Exhibition

Eco-Social Realism: Historic Mural Activations takes as its starting point four murals within the larger neighborhood around TILT that were produced in the early years of Mural Arts Philadelphia: Forest Green (1996) by Ras Malik, Cinema Verde (1998) by Dennis Haugh, Tropical Landscape (1999) by Diane Keller and Tropical Landscape with Waterfall (2000) by Ana Uribe. Four Philadelphia artists were invited to use these murals as a prompt to create activations throughout the summer of 2026 that include active engagement with the site and neighboring areas to explore the meaning of the original work and its relevance for the present. The results from those activations are being exhibited at TILT from September 10 – November 21, 2026.

About the Panelists

Grimaldi Baez is an interdisciplinary artist working across sound, installation, and participatory practice. He builds experimental tools, including drawing machines and sound systems, to explore the relationship between perception, material, and collective experience.

José Ortiz-Pagán, a Puerto Rican artist based in Philadelphia, uses art as a tool for social change, recontextualizing spirituality as a form of resistance. His work empowers communities through collective rituals and storytelling. Notable projects include A Solitary Procession, a space for mourning with dignity, and Summoning of Memory, a performance in Kensington exploring self-agency through shared memory. In 2025, he completed From Soil to Stars, an artist residency at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been exhibited internationally and received recognition from NALAC and the Philadelphia Foundation. In 2026 he was awarded a Pew Fellowship.

Li Sumpter, Ph.D. is a multidisciplinary artist and independent scholar who applies strategies of worldbuilding and mythic design toward building better, more resilient communities of the future. Sumpter’s creative research and collaborative design initiatives engage the art of survival and sustainability through diverse ecologies and immersive stories of change. Sumpter is a cultural producer and eco-arts activist working through MythMedia Studios, the Escape Artist Initiative, and various arts and community-based organizations in Philadelphia and across the country. She holds an MA in Art and Humanities Education from NYU and a MA/Ph.D. in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Sumpter has been a visiting professor at Haverford College and Moore College of Art and Design, and has taught special topics for youth and adult courses at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Barnes Foundation and Fleisher Art Memorial. She has completed various Philadelphia-based residences for arts and technology, arts and ecology, and the literary arts.

Daniel Tucker helps artists, activists and organizations to create impactful work. He has done this through creating independent publications, academic programs, dynamic gatherings and critical exhibitions. He develops projects inspired by his interest in social movements and the people and places from which they emerge. His writings and lectures on the intersections of art and politics and his collaborative art projects have been published and presented widely and are documented on the archive miscprojects.com.

Lori Waselchuk is a documentary photographer whose work is a simultaneous inquiry into the lived experiences of human beings and the systems we inhabit, contest, and construct. Her work is published and exhibited internationally. Waselchuk also curates and coordinates projects that prioritize creative engagement and social change, including the Women’s Mobile Museum, co-created with South African Photographer Zanele Muholi, and Grace Before Dying, a collaboration with incarcerated hospice caregivers at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Waselchuk is a recipient of numerous honors for her work, including an Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photography Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship for the Arts, and a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award.

Ricky Yanas is a Texas-born artist, educator, and curator living in Philadelphia. Working within a pragmatic tradition of problem finding, his work extends through a variety of disciplines (photography, documentary film, installation and archival investigation) with the aim to create inter-sectional/inter-historical spaces of inquiry, mutual engagement, and collaboration through collective art making and ideological exploration. In 2016, Yanas co-founded Ulises Books. His projects include Extension or Communication: Puerto Rico at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery Philadelphia and Taller Puertorriqueno, and The Green Sun, a collaboration with artist Kristen Neville-Taylor that brings together practitioners from environmental and creative sectors to re-envision the role of energy in our lives – past, present and future. Recently, he co-curated An Exchange of Shifting Atmospheres with Leslie Moody Castro at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philly.