Philadelphia Folklore Project

The Philadelphia Folklore Project, founded in 1987, is committed to sustaining community-based arts that are rooted in the histories, traditions, and everyday lives of the people of the Philadelphia region. We collaborate with artists, cultural workers and communities to increase respect for, understanding of, and access to local grassroots arts and humanities, and to challenge systems and practices that diminish them. We investigate and articulate the ways that pursuit of folk arts foster positive social change. Our aim is to assist artists and communities in holding on to meaningful cultural expression as resources, real alternatives, for everyday life.We offer public education in the folk arts (including classes, residencies, and technical assistance services), develop arts- and humanities-based community projects (workshops, public programs, exhibitions), and documentary resources (publications, research, and an archive), and we advocate and organize around issues of concern in the field of folk and traditional arts.