Photo by Ken McFarlane; digital rendering by Jeff Sugg.

To celebrate Black Lives and Black Fatherhood an outdoor public art installation by West Philly artist and activist Ken McFarlane will be projected on the façade of the Barnes Foundation this Saturday and Sunday (June 20 & 21) from 8 – 11 p.m.

The project, titled “From the Root to the Fruit: Portraits of Black Fathers and Their Children“, is presented by We Embrace Fatherhood, a coalition of West Philadelphia fathers, activists and artists, as a part of the Black Lives Matter movement for eradicating systemic racial injustice and in response to the COVID-19 health crisis which has dramatically decreased public access to the arts.

The installation will be projected onto the facade of the Barnes and can be viewed from their South East plaza as well as from the streets. Music will provided by DJs from PC Radio Live. This will be a COVID-19-safe environment, with six foot spacing. Attendees must wear masks at all times. 

This is the second installation of McFarlane’s ongoing photography series featuring Black fathers with their children. Each image is accompanied by quotes about fatherhood drawn from interviews conducted with his subjects. The first installation (in the summer of 2019) featured 11 of McFarlane’s images on the boarded up windows of the Philadelphia Traction Trolley Company building on 41st and Haverford in Mantua. Following its success, the artist wanted to reach out to a wider audience with his positive and deeply authentic portraits that confront the myth of absentee Black Fatherhood.

For more information about We Embrace Fatherhood group members and how the idea of the Barnes installation came about, visit this page.