My North Philly : Cluster B — Kensington

Before:


After:

Mural was installed at Kensington and Letterly Avenue, Fall 2006.
Artist: David McShane
Tile Artist: Danielle Callahan
Assistants: Paul Downie, Mary Noel Ellis Hall, Sean O'Neil, Nicholas Chapman, and Emily Mengel, with additional help from Donna and Mike Gallagher and Eileen Blair.

The My North Philly Kensington Mural design grew out of David McShane's interactions with various Kensington neighbors that took place at community meetings and smaller discussion groups. Tapping into the feedback from these interactions and into the research that ethnographer Maria Möller had gathered, the concepts for the design solidified. The overall emphasis of the mural is on the proud, hardworking, working-class identity that had been pervasive throughout Kensington's history. The main image of the mural is of a factory worker in a textile mill with two large swaths of fabric extending across the mural. In between the swaths is a physical representation of Kensington, such as vistas of the shops, houses, factories, and the Frankford El. Embedded into the fabric design of the cloth are symbols of the people who live and have lived in Kensington and the work and recreational activities in which they engaged. Some of these embedded images on tiles are those that neighbors had hand made and then cemented onto the wall as part of several tile workshops that were offered during the creation of the mural. Local residents also participated in the creation of the mural by helping fill in the design during community paint days. This project attempted to maximize the inclusion and participation of as many neighbors as possible.

Photos from the Community Tile Workshops: