About the Participants
Cynthia Porter is a Philadelphia based artist who taught design and textile classes at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for more than 10 years. Her work, including her sculpture, has been featured in several solo and group exhibitions in the eastern United States, including the Samuel Fleisher Art Memorial and Drexel University’s Nesbit Gallery of the Arts and Design in Philadelphia, PA. She is co-founder of Marafiki Arts and maintains her studio at Crane Arts in Philadelphia.
Christina Roberts is currently the Director of Education at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, adjunct instructor at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, and co-founder of Marafiki Ars. She specializes in contemporary collaborative art making practices using traditional textile printing and dyeing techniques with focus on sustainable methods. She carries out research to develop and implement programs for international and local community outreach initiatives.
About InLiquid
InLiquid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to creating opportunities and exposure for visual artists through exhibitions in the InLiquid Gallery and satellite exhibition spaces, all while serving as a free, online, public hub that showcases Philadelphia’s vast visual arts culture.We actively promote artists’ work online by constructing public, searchable high quality pages that include contact information, artwork, resumes/bios, statements, relevant links and exhibit history. Through our numerous ongoing exhibition programs distributed throughout the city in galleries and alternative spaces, meaningful partnerships with cultural organizations and corporate clients, unique community-engaged events, and the nurturing of relationships with art collectors, we introduce and connect the quality, diversity and magnitude of our region’s visual art culture to broader audiences, thus directly impacting Philadelphia’s cultural community and economy.
InLiquid + 40th Parallel North Preservation Brigade
During 2023 InLiquid has a suite of sustainability programming planned as part of an initiative called The 40th Parallel North Preservation Brigade (40PNPB). The goal of 40PNPB is to facilitate a conversation about human impacts on our environment from a hyper-local approach. The 40PNPB name is inspired by and references the longitudinal circle of the location of the Crane Building, known as the 40th Parallel North. The 40th Parallel North Preservation Brigade exhibition and workshop series will take place at the InLiquid Gallery and our partner venues throughout the 2023 season.
About Marafiki Arts
Marafiki Arts (meaning friends-all) works with the Kamba community in Wote, Kenya to make textile products using hand-spun cotton, eri silk, sisal, hand-woven cloth, silkscreen printed fabrics, and natural dye colorants. Our products use natural organic fibers and natural plant dyes grown locally in Kenya. Through the sales of these products, Marafiki Arts is able to raise funds to train, support, and promote self-reliance for members of this community.
Marafiki Arts supports training programs, artistic exchanges, and research programs that align with the natural resources, traditional crafts, and heritage of the Kamba. The programs are conducted in our textile workshop in Wote, equipped with looms, a ten-meter printing table, and additional work spaces.
