Helix Gallery
Contact
1001 Locust Street
Hamilton Building
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Contact
1020 Locust Street
Jefferson Alumni Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Helix Gallery
File/Life: We Remember Stories of Pennhurst
January 17 - April 13, 2024
Jefferson Humanities & Health and The Institute on Disabilities, Temple University, College of Education and Human Development, present File/Life: We Remember Stories of Pennhurst at Helix Gallery.
Over nearly eight decades, more than 10,000 people lived at the Pennhurst State School and Hospital, an institution for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities operated by the state of Pennsylvania from 1908 to 1987. When it opened, Pennhurst was considered a model facility. When it closed, it was because Pennhurst violated the human rights of the people living there.
File/Life is a community-led creative exploration of the Pennhurst archives by seven archivists, all people with disabilities and/or family members, including two former Pennhurst residents. These community archivists collaborated with a team of multi-disciplinary artists to share stories that made them listen, feel, imagine, and remember. In doing so, they asked the question: Can a file ever contain a life?
Visitors are invited to read and interact with archival material, listen to audio and watch video. Content is ASL interpreted, audio described, captioned, and available in Braille and though QR codes. Some video content is accessed through headphones.
About Helix Gallery
The Helix Gallery showcases creative projects that explore connections between the arts, humanities, medicine and health, as well as an annual Jefferson student art exhibition.
Location
1001 Locust Street, Philadelphia, 19107
(inside the Dorrance H. Hamilton Building)
Hours
January 17-April 13, 2024
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Plus, selected Saturdays:
February 17, 12-5 p.m.
March 16, 12-5 p.m.
April 13, 12-5 p.m.
Contact: Megan Voeller, Director of Humanities
Past Projects
The Crisis Isn't Over
October 9, 2023 - January 5, 2024
Pulling from the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives at the William Way LGBT Community Center, Rami George presents “The Crisis Isn’t Over,” a new exhibition for Jefferson’s Helix Gallery. With a focus on materials related to the ongoing AIDS crisis, George revisits legacies of activism from ACT UP and local figures lost early to AIDS. “The Crisis Isn’t Over” continues George’s explorations into local Philadelphia queer history, and is their first presentation as the Archives inaugural Artist in Residence.
Rami George (born 1989, U.S.) is a multidisciplinary artist currently based on Lenape land in what is now called Philadelphia. Their work—spanning photo, video, installation, text, and music/sound—has been presented in exhibitions and screenings at the William Way LGBT Community Center, Philadelphia; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Anthology Film Archives, New York City; Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland; Grand Union, Birmingham, England; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; LUX, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and elsewhere. They continue to be influenced and motivated by political struggles and fractured narratives.
Image from "Au Courant" Photographs Collection in the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives at the William Way LGBT Community Center, selected and scanned by Rami George.