Embedded Files
Concept: Tieshka SmithLogo Refresh & Additional Graphic Design: Beth MinerOriginal Logo Design: Angela Miles
About the Residency
About the Residency
Eleven years after launching #RacismIsASickness at G-Town Radio, photographer, writer, and community-engaged artist Tieshka K. Smith returns to the place where the project began to kickoff a four-month artist residency that revisits the original project through the lens of time, place, memory, and community.
Eleven years after launching #RacismIsASickness at G-Town Radio, photographer, writer, and community-engaged artist Tieshka K. Smith returns to the place where the project began to kickoff a four-month artist residency that revisits the original project through the lens of time, place, memory, and community.
All Roads Lead Back to G-Town Radio: The Window Installation
All Roads Lead Back to G-Town Radio: The Window Installation
Anchoring the residency is a window installation titled "All Roads Lead Back to G-Town Radio."
Anchoring the residency is a window installation titled "All Roads Lead Back to G-Town Radio."
This installation shows the distance—and, in some cases, the surprising proximity—between the participants' home neighborhoods and G-Town Radio. The map also surfaces a selection of nearby sites of Black presence, history, and resistance. Together, they reveal a dynamic geography shaped by generations of Black Philadelphians whose everyday lives, institutions, organizing, and resistance have left an enduring imprint on the city.
More than a decade later, this installation invites us to consider how place shapes memory, how communities shape public conversation, and why returning to where a story began can reveal new ways of understanding the present.
Watch a short video of the artist Tieshka Smith sharing her thoughts about the installation.
Watch a short video of the artist Tieshka Smith sharing her thoughts about the installation.
Inside the Green Room
Inside the Green Room
An Uneasy Dialogue
A series of 14 images representing a mashup of one half of the original masked born-digital portraits, and one half that was intentionally aged to reflect the passage of more than a decade, invites visitors to encounter the same faces through the lens of elapsed time and to reflect on what has changed, what has endured, and how conversations about racial healing continue to evolve.
Concept and Original Photography: Tieshka SmithDesign: Beth Miner
The Journey Continued In 2016...
Three additional maps chronicle the project's journey after its completion, tracing its 2016 exhibition at three venues across Philadelphia. Paired with archival photographic collages documenting community engagement at each location, these installations invite visitors to consider how the work moved through distinct social and geographic contexts as it entered public life.
Community Engagement Throughout the Residency
Community Engagement Throughout the Residency
Throughout the residency, the space will be activated through opportunities for both personal reflection and community dialogue. Visitors will be invited to contribute written responses, create commemorative buttons inspired by their experience of the work, participate in Chat & Chew conversations, and engage with the project during Philadelphia Open Studio Tours.
The residency will culminate in a live convening that reunites voices connected to the project's earlier history while inviting the broader community into one final conversation about the ongoing work of racial healing.
An Ongoing Inquiry
An Ongoing Inquiry
Rather than presenting the original project as a historical artifact, this residency invites visitors to encounter its creation, its public life, and its return to G-Town Radio more than ten years later.
Through installation, photography, mapping, archival material, and community participation, the residency creates multiple opportunities to reflect on the enduring questions that first gave rise to the project and the conversations that continue today. Like much of Smith's work, the residency draws on multiple creative disciplines to create spaces where people can move beyond immediate reaction toward deeper interpretation, shared inquiry, and community dialogue.
Calendar of Events/Community Activations
Calendar of Events/Community Activations
August 2026
August 2026
Opening reception: August 8, 2026, 6-9 pm EDT
September 2026
September 2026
Chat and Chew gathering, TBD
October 2026
October 2026
Philadelphia Open Studio Tours: October 10-11, 2026 (Noon-6pm both days)
Chat and Chew gathering, TBD
November 2026
November 2026
Chat and Chew gathering, TBD
Live convening and culminating event, TBD
If you have an idea for an event or community activation, please reach out to Tieshka at racismisasickness@gmail.com
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