Eco-Social Realism: Historic Mural Activations
On-View: September 10 – November 21, 2026
Artists: José Ortiz-Pagán, Li Sumpter, Lori Waselchuk, and Ricky Yanas & Grimaldi Baez
Curator: Daniel Tucker
Collaborator: Pete Angevine
Participating Institutions: Mural Arts Philadelphia and TILT Institute
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. Those murals include: 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. As with many murals of that time period, these four engaged in the representation of pastoral and garden scenes, often mixing fantasy with landscapes familiar to both nearby Pennsylvania and the Caribbean, where many neighbors originally migrated from. With support from Mural Arts Philadelphia and building on a previous project utilizing “historic mural activations”, four Philadelphia artists have been 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.
This exhibit is part of a series called Eco-Social Realism, which is a regional exhibition series that grows out of the ongoing Eco-Social Series, co-sponsored by RAIR, Green Sun and Making Worlds books since 2023. The exhibitions are taking place in multiple sites throughout the region in late 2026, including Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College, Rowan University Museum of Contemporary Art, Street Road Artist Space, TILT Institute, Big Ramp and RAIR. This exhibition series brings together artworks that show an increased interest in infrastructural and bioregional practices that can visualize and embody the territorial scale of both problems and solutions related to the climate crisis.
