Retail Arts

Our Goal: Lively Retail Space and Cultural Offerings

Drexel University is committed to the development of a lively retail, dining, and entertainment corridor in the neighborhoods that surround its campus. Through partnerships with University City District, People's Emergency Center , the city of Philadelphia, its agencies, and other local civic and development groups, Drexel is working to transform Lancaster Avenue into a vibrant retail and commercial channel modeled after other successful corridors in University City.

Drexel's goal is to attract shopping, new business and more arts and culture amenities along the Lancaster Avenue corridor for residents, entrepreneurs, and community organizations. From retail development for University-owned properties to exciting community art projects, Drexel continues to explore new ways to create lively retail space and cultural offerings in West Philadelphia.

Highlights

• In 2011, Drexel University partnered with University City District , the People's Emergency Center and Powelton-Mantua community arts groups for Look! On Lancaster Avenue , a public art project designed to begin to restore the West Philadelphia Lancaster Avenue corridor. The project was funded in part by a $30,000 grant from the City of Philadelphia's "Restore Corridors through Art" program. The multifaceted art project included group art shows and public performances in existing galleries and public spaces along the Lancaster Avenue corridor. More than 200 artists competed to be among the 16 chosen to realize their storefront/window installation projects. A work by Paul Schultz, a Drexel Professor with the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design , was featured in the exhibit.
• Drexel students in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design conducted research on the history of Philadelphia's mural arts program, which has created more than 3,000 murals in Philadelphia since it began in 1984. The students interviewed artists and representatives from mural arts, and toured the space that will serve as the staging area for How Philly Moves, a 50,000 square ft. mural being installed at the Philadelphia International Airport by artist and photographer Jacques-Jean "JJ" Tiziou. The students set out to make the most of this space and create temporary pop-up exhibit spaces to inform visitors of the history of the mural arts program and the important work it does in the community.
• Drexel students paired up with local residents of the Lancaster Avenue corridor to create Augmented Avenue: Memories of Lancaster , a collaborative art project for creative urban engagement that offers visitors a new way to experience the neighborhood. The students worked in partnership with members of the community who narrated their stories and memories, together co-authoring a dynamic portrait of local history. The project invited students to examine the city as a virtual and mixed reality space and investigates the complex means by which cell phones, GPS, mobile recording devices, and social network games affect their knowledge of and relation to lived space. It was led by Hana Iverson, a visitor scholar with the Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers University and director of Neighborhood Narratives, an international education project that explores the issues that surface when new ideas made possible by locative media technologies are applied to space and place.