Artists and Community Conveners

Diane Bridges

Community Convener Diane Bridges is a dedicated community organizer with decades of experience serving the neighborhood. She has worked as a social worker, director of a local CDC, and today is the Chairperson of the Democratic Committee in the 37th Ward.

Shaheed Davis

Community Convener Shaheed is a lifelong community resident with a passion for environmental beautification and community service. He is a graduate of the Citizens Planning Institute and works at The Village as a Community Development Associate.

Reggie Johnson

Reggie Johnson grew up a block from The Village. As a young person, Reggie attended Village arts programs, and grew into a party promoter who created safe spaces for young people to express themselves together. Reggie was recently elected Democratic Committee Person for the 37th Ward.

Jordan McCree

Jordan holds a Degree in Jazz Drums from the University of the Arts. He is the drummer for Philly-based hiphop and social justice collective Ill Doots and composes original music for theater. He is a drum instructor at Ambler Music.

Michael Reiley McDermott

Michael Reiley McDermott has created works for film, dance, stage, installation, smart phones, multi-speaker arrays, piano, wishing wells, electric gardens and dreamers. His practice explores the relationship between present moment awareness, deep time and humanity’s personal connection through listening. His work integrates meditation, Deep Listening and textured sound worlds through a process called “sonic photography”. This process involves site specific recordings of physical spaces re-imagined using photographic development and collage techniques. His aim is to reframe the everyday world as a infinite statement that stretches out in both directions of time and as an ephemeral instant of precious connection. Michael was Artist in Residence at fidget, Composer in Residence for Temple University’s BEEP Ensemble and is Composer in Residence at Village of the Arts and Humanities. Upcoming and recent residencies include: Ayatana (Ottawa, Canada), Casa Na Ilha (Ilhabela Brazil), Listhus (Ólafsfjördur, Iceland), Leibig12 (Berlin, Germany), Com Peung (Chiang Mai, Thailand), PECAH (Uttarkhand, India). He recently completed a certification program in Deep Listening studying with Deep Listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros.

Shawn Theodore

Shawn Theodore is a multidisciplinary Philadelphia-based artist working in photography, video, and collage. His practice focuses on the fragmentation and manipulation of African American and African Diasporan identities and otherness, while exploring concepts of race, spirituality, patriarchy, matriarchy and class structure within disappearing Black communities.

Scott Ziegler

Scott Ziegler is a producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and educator. Scott moved to Philadelphia in 2009 to pursue a degree in jazz studies at the University of the Arts, and shortly after arriving in Philly started work on a mixtape that would eventually give birth to the band ILL DOOTS. Scott served as musical director for An Octoroon at the Wilma Theatre, and Hands Up at Flashpoint Theatre Company which won the Barrymore Award for Best Original Music. In addition to work with ILL DOOTS, Scott produces music for other artists and mediums such as film, podcasts, and exhibits. Scott teaches songwriting/production at the Village of Arts and Humanities helping students to write and record original music.

Community Members

Deepest thanks to the many Hartranft community members who contributed their time, stories, organizing efforts and love to this project, including Katherine Barnes, Edward Glover, Eric Bennefield, and many more.

Breanne Furlong

Breanne Furlong documented this project through photography. Breanne is a photographer made and raised in Philadelphia. After leaving The University of the Arts to pursue full-time work, she established a business devoted to capturing people’s lives by way of photography. From photojournalism and portraiture to commercial advertising and fine art, Breanne’s interest remains in telling stories of process and personal experience by studying real moments.

Daniel Jackson

The short film about Home Court was created by Daniel Jackson, freelance videographer/photographer and owner of Embassy: Interactive, LLC. His video production includes features on major platforms such as Xfinity on Demand, VH1 and ESPN, as well as the Blackstar Film Festival, Reading Terminal Market, Christian Louboutin and All Def Digital.

Ricky Yanas

Exhibition Coordinator Ricky Yanas is a Texas born artist, curator, service worker, and educator based in Philadelphia, PA. He received his Masters of Fine Arts from the Universtiy of Texas at Austin in 2011. In his work, which is based in the philosophy of pragmatism, he utilizes photography, painting, sculpture, and installation, in an attempt to highlight and link activist traditions of critique and praxis with a multitude of aesthetic, philosophical, and political histories. He is a member of the artist-run gallery Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia through which he will curate a multi-site, multi-date exhibition called “A Body Has No Center” beginning in September. This fall he worked with with Nerissa Cooney, Lauren Downing, Kayla Romberger and Gee Wesley to open Ulises, Philadelphia’s first bookshop to focus on artists’ books and independent publications.