Streets Dept
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StreetsDept.com is a photo-blog that discovers art on the streets of Philadelphia. The primary focus of Streets Dept is documenting and celebrating street art and muralism across Philly's public spaces. Conrad Benner is the Founder of StreetsDept.com. His work explores art, our public space, and the creative minds shaping the world around us.
Streets Dept
6d ago
(Photos provided by Streets Dept reader, Shay Rutkowski)
It appears South Street’s “Angel” mural is going away. Located at 5th and Bainbridge Streets, this mural has been a bit of a mystery from its beginning. Known mostly for its religious themes that are best summed up as “God is love,” the mural was painted in 2018 after a pair of adjacent rowhomes were demolished to make way for a six-story apartment building with a Target on the first floor.
(Google Maps’ photo of 5th and Bainbridge in 2017, with the future mural wall blank in the background.)
When I first ..read more
Streets Dept
1w ago
This is the sixth post in our fourth season of Philly Street Art Interviews! This season is sponsored by Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) and its @PHLAirportArt program, which curates museum-quality art exhibitions that introduce millions of visitors from around the world to the vibrant artistic culture of the region. PHL proudly supports Philly arts and culture/365! Interview and photos by Streets Dept Lead Contributor Eric Dale.
If you’ve ever seen an arrangement of glass pieces hanging from a fence in Philly, you’ve had the opportunity to be transformed by the power of light, than ..read more
Streets Dept
1w ago
(Engine 49 in South Philly has a brilliantly punk mural painted by the Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter School.)
Words and photos by Streets Dept Contributor Siena Christopherson.
Have you ever been walking by your neighborhood fire station and noticed a work of (un?)ironically cool, fire-related art? You’re not alone. We’ve been noticing them for years. And today, we look at a few in-particular that have caught our eyes and work to understand how these murals ever came to be. (Engine 12’s mural in Manayunk; we would buy this design on a T-shirt in a heartbeat!)
At a station in Mana ..read more
Streets Dept
1M ago
Words and photos by Streets Dept Contributor Siena Christopherson.
WET is an artist, musician, and muralist from Philadelphia. In the beginning of 2023, he painted a mural, called A Prediction of Unity, at 4202 Main Street in Manayunk. It’s a mural that changed the street forever.
“The lady who was working in the gallery next door came outside, she’s a Black woman, And she was in tears and was like, ‘it was beautiful to see somebody of color put up a mural this big in this town.’ And it just means so much on so many levels. So the wall was bigger and it was more impactful than even I exp ..read more
Streets Dept
1M ago
This is the fifth post in our fourth season of Philly Street Art Interviews! This season is sponsored by Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) and its @PHLAirportArt program, which curates museum-quality art exhibitions that introduce millions of visitors from around the world to the vibrant artistic culture of the region. PHL proudly supports Philly arts and culture/365! Interview and photos by Streets Dept Lead Contributor Eric Dale.
Luíza Cardenuto is a Philly-based linocut printmaker born in São Paulo, Brazil. A week ago, I would have said that she’s known for her botanical wheatpastes ..read more
Streets Dept
2M ago
Words and photos by Streets Dept Lead Contributor Eric Dale.
Welcome to our third entry in the periodic series we call “Upstairs At TMom’s!”
Tattooed Mom, the restaurant and bar that’s been a [counter]cultural fixture on South Street for 25 years now, is widely known as Philly’s officially unofficial museum of street art. That’s because the entire upstairs is filled—FILLED—with graffiti and street art. Not just from local artists, but also from artists around the world, who make it a point to stop at “TMom’s” when they pass through Philly.
Mom’s recently hosted their sixth Thirsty Walls gath ..read more
Streets Dept
2M ago
(Artwork by Paola_Delfin; Based on an image by Belal Khaled)
Over the last week a number of bus shelter ads around Center City, Philadelphia have been removed and replaced with images to remind people of the current crisis in Gaza and call for a ceasefire. This Philly initiative has been organized by Art in Ad Places, their first to-date in Philadelphia, using the artworks made available to the public by the Unmute Gaza project.
“Unmute Gaza is a campaign that brings photographers in Gaza together with artists and activists to humanize the people of Gaza, share the crisis unfolding there, and ..read more
Streets Dept
2M ago
This is the fourth post in our fourth season of Philly Street Art Interviews! This season is sponsored by Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) and its @PHLAirportArt program, which curates museum-quality art exhibitions that introduce millions of visitors from around the world to the vibrant artistic culture of the region. PHL proudly supports Philly arts and culture/365! Interview and photos by Streets Dept Lead Contributor Eric Dale.
By my reckoning, bolt-ups are one of the least-used mediums in street art. Generally speaking, a bolt-up is an artwork created at-home or in-studio, usuall ..read more
Streets Dept
3M ago
Interview and photos by Streets Dept’s Conrad Benner.
This fall, Afromation Avenue unveiled its second annual series of positive affirmation street signs in Germantown! A public art project “for the neighborhood by the neighborhood,” this effort is the brainchild of two Philadelphia public school teachers and artists, Brittni Jennings and Kristin Kelly; created with support from Mural Arts Philadelphia. Streets Dept is also a supporter of the project, and I have been consulting on it since 2022.
After launching the project last year in West Philly, Brittni and Kristin set their sights on Germ ..read more
Streets Dept
3M ago
Art Outside is a new podcast from Streets Dept’s Conrad Benner, created with WHYY. For our third episode we talk with Symone Salib! And in lieu of creating a photoessay of Symone’s work (like I’m doing to promote the rest of our Art Outside interviews this season), today we have a mini-doc to share with you!
Symone Salib is one of Philly’s most well-known street artists. And in our interview we talk about how she landed multiple projects with national brands, and how her creative work helps her heal.
Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, including  ..read more