ARTS . Art

Inside Job

Activist artist Peggy Diggs responds to worst-case scenarios.


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Published: Oct 18, 2006

art review

Activist artist Peggy Diggs responds to worst-case scenarios. What should one wear following an Ultimate Terrorist Attack? Her satirical, multilayered Readiness ensemble (2004) was based on government publications. It included tool belts, canned meat and fish, and a scavenger coat with big pockets.

Diggs's most recent inspiration was an apocalyptic vision of the future outlined in an internal Pentagon report on global warming. What would help refugees living in overcrowded shelters? "I thought," she says, "wouldn't it be great to have people who are specialists in living in a tight situation design for these problems? And the first thing I thought of was prisoners."

Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program facilitated Diggs' meetings with inmates in the Graterford State Correctional Institution, a group that had tackled several art projects including murals. Focusing on furniture, the men developed models of multifunctional designs and produced 30 compact desks at full scale. The corrugated cardboard held together by metal screws is cheap, lightweight and strong. When closed, the piece has a flat top and a rectangular footprint. Side storage sections pivot out, opening the kneehole to a modest writing surface.

Each piece is a unique work of art painted in emphatic colors. Van and SESCO (Inmates could not use their full names) combined a black Celtic/biker/tattoo pattern with a subtle geometric gambling motif. It works. An all-over design of thick bent lines is by SPEL, who is also showing his paintings at The Main Line Unitarian Church in Devon through Oct. 29.

Prisoners are not allowed to keep or sell the furniture, but hope to give a couple of samples to the prison administration. They decided to donate the rest to the Riverview Home for the Aged, a facility that serves mostly indigent older people, who, the inmates hope, will be able to put them to good use. Five of the 30 can be seen now at the Broad Street Ministry.

The handsome stone building is easy to find, but Pastor Bill Golderer reports that, strangely, it has no street number. It receives mail through the nearby University of the Arts. You can't miss it though: It's the only church on the 300 block of Broad Street.

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

WorkOut

Through Oct. 25, Broad Street Ministry, across from 320 S. Broad St., 215-917-2251