The BSR Weekly Arts and Culture Roundup, July 2-8, 2025

Queridos
Now through August 2, 2025
Atrium Gallery at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture

Anita Guerra brings the sequel to her 2020 show Tres Patrias to Philly in Queridos, a visual multimedia kaleidoscope of her journey from an idyllic childhood in Havana to the Mother Cabrini Orphanage in Philadelphia. The Temple University graduate and professor in Rome evokes questions of “what if” in the exhibition: “what if my family had stayed behind, or what if the Revolution had not violently separated me from my parents and my brother and sisters through Operation Peter Pan?”

FreedomFest Fireworks Festival
July 4, 5-9pm
Pleasant Hill Park, 8900 Delaware Avenue, Philadelphia

One River Alliance and State Street Events brings fireworks and more to Pleasant Hill Park on the holiday. The family-friendly event will feature live musical performances, more than 20 local food trucks, artisan vendors, and a beer garden for the grown-ups. The Northeast Philly festival has been running since 2019 and is poised to be a spectacle along the Delaware River. It’s free and open to the public.

Where I'm From
July 5-August 25, 2025
The Barnes Foundation, 2025 Benjamin Franklin Parkway

The Barnes and Mural Arts Philadelphia present this new original work exhibition featuring artists from Mural Arts’ Rec Crew. The Rec Crew, a 24-week job readiness and life skills program for justice-impacted young adults, along with artists at State Correctional Institution Phoenix—a maximum security prison for men in southeast Pennsylvania, looks to bring reflection and awareness to viewers. The exhibition is the culmination of an effort throughout the spring to give voices to the perspectives of individuals not often heard in our society.

Brand X: Innovations in Screenprinting
July 5-November 16, 2025
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway

The PMA’s summer exhibit opens this weekend, celebrating its Brand X editions archive—which holds more than 400 screenprints. Featuring more than 80 works by artists, the Brand X studio founded in New York in 1979 transformed the industry of edition printing. This exhibition explores the ways that artists draw on the decorative potential of screenprints, working with pattern and texture to create imaginative surfaces and how they reflect real world experiences.

Flower Power
Sunday, July 6, 10am-3pm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway

While you’re at the PMA checking out Brand X, you can also stop by their Flower Power family festival happening on Sunday. A variety of activities centering floral fun is lined up for the day, including experimenting with printing, sketching flower-filled still life, an interactive performance by Ninth Planet, a free-form dance party, and more.

Conversations With Miranda
July 9-12
Main Stage at the Players Club of Swarthmore, 614 Fairview Road, Swarthmore

This new play from Zakarak Productions blends reality with the metaphysical as it tells the story of Stephen Childs as he navigates the delicate space between the present and the afterlife alongside his late wife, Miranda—whose unstoppable spirit propels her through the mysteries of eternity in her mission to make peace, connect with Stephen, reach their son, and to set things right along her journey.

Featured image: Tschabalala Self, ‘Homebodies - All American 1,’ 2022. (Image courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art.)

Image description: Fabrics, pigment wash, colors and screenprint create image of a Black woman sitting on a chair against a US flag backdrop.