Vinson Houston: My interest in the arts has led me from personal expression to creative education. A goal of mine is to communicate to others the need of community’s creativity for constructive advancement. Fleisher Art Memorial is where my artist career began in August 2000. With this grounding, I began my studies at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PafA) in the fall of 2002. I was awarded the Stimson Award for figurative sculpture in 2004. I began independent studio work in 2005. Though PafA's emphasis was on traditional art practices, I was exposed to post-modern concepts. The influx of post-modern ideas and media informed new ways of working with my environment. Through drawing and recounting of past memories I assembled an artist group performance. This became an award winning theatre presentation, as I was granted the convened Cresson Travel Scholarship from PafA.My work continued in theatre when I joined the Spring School of the Arts in September of 2006. As an art and science teacher, I encouraged children to constructively use their imaginations. Spring School of the Arts has complimented my contributions with the Jay-Loft Lyn Award for visionary art and ideas. My goal is to lead artistically the enlightened minds in society to express freely through theatre. Creative expression is essential for advancement of individuals. Teaching children to begin this artistic journey of experience and presentation is a key to finding the artist, engineers and architects within ourselves. My artistic experience culminates in an active performance of communicating the joy of memories, and my work for others.
Cecilia Paredes was born in Lima, Peru and currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. Recent works include:
Solo Exhibitions:
2009 “Unbounded” Johnson Gallery, Jacksonville, US
PINTA solo show New York, NY
“Of Natural Subject” IILA Rome, Italy
“Animal of my Time” Humboldt State University, California
2008 Treviso Michela Rizzo. Italy
FIA, Caracas international guest artist Galleria Michela Rizzo Venice, Italy
2007 Costa Rica Museum of Art
2006 University of Indiana, Indiana, US
Collective Exhibitions:
2009 Off the Beaten Path
Itinerant show starting Oslo Museum, Norway.
Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, Spain
Second Skin curated by Valerio Deho Treviso, Italy
2008 Getxophoto, Bilbao, Spain
Unlearning Intolerance Series United Nations
and Natural World Museum, New York, US
Royal Museum, Monaco
Contemporary Museum, Santiago, Chile
2007 “Animalistica” Central Bank Museum, Costa Rica
‘Change” Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, Norway
Cultural Center Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2006 Art and Architecture Biennial Canary Islands
Beyond Lilith, Frascati, Italy
Chemin D’Art, Salle des Jacobins St Flour, France
2005 Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Contemporary Art Center, Canary Islands
Open Maps, Photography of the Americas, Madrid
Awards and residencies:
2010 GOZO Contemporary, Malta
2008 International guest artist: Ibero American Art Fair
FIA Caracas, 2008
2006 Chemin D Art, invited artist St Flour, France.
Joanna S. Quigley received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art and studied modern dance at Slippery Rock University and the University of the Arts. She has exhibited work and performed at Rooms Gallery (Chicago), ! Gallery (Philadelphia), Little Berlin (Philadelphia), The Community Education Center (CEC) and in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Quigley focuses on using video, sound, drawing and performance to create environments. Using installation, she influences the viewer to use their past experiences as a storyline for her creation. Quigley has lended her artistic vision to the Mural Arts Program at P.H. Sheridan Elementary School in Philadelphia and to Indigenous Pitch's summer camp in New Orleans and North Philadelphia. Currently residing in Philadelphia, she is the choreographer for Out-Going Dance Theater, a member of Club Lyfestile dance troupe and the creator of the Mail Art Collective.
Glen Sacks 
Beth Uzwiak is a visual anthropologist currently finishing her PhD at Temple University. Her academic pursuits are in direct response to ongoing experiences working locally and internationally with survivors of domestic violence. Beth has a professional background in community counseling and advocacy, and has used art in therapeutic and social justice capacities. Beth writes, designs, and prints artist books and works-on-paper under her press name, Pierce Imprint. Her work is often ethnographic in practice and integrates collage, sewing, drawing, printmaking, painting, text, and installation. She is interested in the differences between “official” or historical representations of human experiences and how people actually process these same experiences. A recent collaborative installation, for example, combines photography, ceramics, court documents and narratives to explore community responses to eminent domain practices in Philadelphia. More recent work deals with the painful tensions between biomedical explanations for disease, internal bodily functions, and our human responses to death and dying.
