What Power Does an Image Hold?

This interactive panel features an experimental structure that includes a live presentation, artist-to-artist conversation, and intimate dialogue with the audience. Our discussion will explore the power dynamics images embody—specifically in visual art and media (film, photography, painting, etc.)—that raise questions about labor in the arts, disrupt systems of value, and lift individual stories that lack representation. Featuring perspectives from visual artists (currently or formerly members of artist collectives and/or collaboratively built spaces), cultural organizers (individuals whose practice is defined by creating social experiences to uplift a community), and curators (individuals whose practice is defined by working directly with filmmakers to present stories that resonate with their audiences and build movements)—this group sees collective visioning and collaborative storytelling as foundational to their practice. Topics to be explored include unlearning harmful practices around cost and time, weaving and nourishing interdependent ecosystems in Philadelphia and beyond, community care and solidarity under capitalism.

• Beandrea July
• Bee Knight
• Preetika Rajgariah
• Sarah Mueller
• Stephanie Bursese
• Stephanye Watts

Image caption: Preetika Rajgariah; One who knows how to enjoy life does not need riches; yoga mats, sari, acrylic paint; 68" x 120”; 2025

The Parallel Play Symposium, presented as part of the six-week Collective Futures festival, is a two-day gathering of artists, scholars, organizers, and cultural workers exploring the practices, histories, and conditions that sustain collective cultural production. Through free panels, workshops, and performative presentations, participants will examine the cultural significance of collective art-making and artist-run spaces while sharing strategies for building and maintaining collaborative cultural infrastructures.

Organized around thematic tracks—including How To: Collective Tools & Tactics, Relational Infrastructures, “Have You Seen the ___?”: Memory and Collective Spaces, and Playground: Place, Ecology & Entanglement—the symposium will feature workshops, panels, performances, and conversations presented by ATUOMAT Collective, Luster Gallery + Studio, Obvious Agency, Vox Populi, Termite TV Collective, All Mutable, FORTUNE, FJORD, Big Ramp, Da Vinci Art Alliance, cinéSPEAK, Practice Gallery, and many other collaborators.

Registration is required for each session.