about
Collective Futures
is a six-week, citywide project activating Philadelphia’s network of artist-run spaces, DIY venues, and community-based initiatives. This collaboratively organized project bringing together more than 30 independent spaces and organizations, Collective Futures will unfold across the city through exhibitions, performances, workshops, and public programs from Kensington and North Chinatown to West Philadelphia, Fishtown, and Old City, between October 2 and November 15, 2026.

At its core, Collective Futures centers collective practice as a vital mode of cultural production. Across disciplines and contexts, the project highlights how artists come together to build shared platforms, experiment with new forms, and sustain creative communities.

Taking place during the 250th anniversary of the so-called United States, while many institutions in Philadelphia conjure programming around the complex histories of nation-building and democracy, Collective Futures highlights the artistic experimentation and alternative models that grassroots cultural spaces have long been building

Collective Futures is grounded in the specific conditions of Philadelphia, where a rich ecosystem of artist-run and DIY spaces has made collaborative cultural production possible. As rising costs and development reshape the city, the project affirms the importance of collective cultural life and the infrastructures that sustain it, so that our work can mobilize resources, deepen connections, and envision transformative futures.

Collective Futures is:

  • 2C Books / Marginal Utility
  • 3rd Street Gallery
  • 5U Space
  • All Mutable
  • The Arts League
  • Asian Arts Initiative
  • AUTOMAT Collective
  • Batikh Batikh
  • The Bearded Ladies Cabaret
  • Big Ramp
  • Biomaterials Working Group
  • BYO Printmaking Collaborative
  • Center for Emerging Visual Artists
  • Cherry St Pier
  • cinéSPEAK
  • City Arts Salon LLC
  • Da Vinci Art Alliance
  • errata projects
  • Facing Bench
  • Fairmount House
  • FJORD
  • Future Flower Collective
  • FORTUNE
  • Gravy Studio
  • Grizzly Grizzly
  • The Halide Project
  • Hall Pass
  • Icebox Project Space
  • Jane Gallery
  • Luster Gallery
  • Memory Workers Guild
  • Muse Gallery
  • Obvious Agency
  • Paradigm Gallery + Studio
  • Peep Projects
  • Pentimenti
  • People’s Music Supply
  • Pink Noise Projects
  • Practice
  • Prism Arts
  • Second State Press
  • Space 1026
  • Teils Studio
  • Termite TV Collective
  • Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia
  • Ulises
  • Umbria Arts
  • Vox Populi
  • The Wooden Shoe

Collective Futures is made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the PCI Catalyst Grant, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Free People and the Penn Treaty Special Services District (PTSSD).

(close)

Picture Day 2

Practice Gallery

October 2 — November 15, 2026

Picture Day 2: Philadelphia Artists & Arts Workers 
Philadelphia Museum of Art Steps
November 8, 2026, 12:00 pm
Rain date: November 11, 2026

Picture Day 2 recreates and continues the original 2012 Picture Day that was a part of the City Wide, bringing together Philadelphia artists, arts workers, organizers, educators, performers, and members of the broader creative community for a large-scale group photograph on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

On Sunday, November 8 (rain date of Sunday, November 22), Practice will facilitate a group picture of every artist and artworker in Philadelphia. This picture will be taken on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which serves both as a place iconic to Philadelphia and as an important location for art and culture within the city. The resulting photograph, along with documentation taken by people at the event, will be shown at Practice Gallery in November of this year as a part of Collective Futures, a collective exhibition of artist-run spaces. If you are an artist or creative, please save the date. You are a part of something important, we celebrate the people who make up the city’s creative ecosystem.. Let us capture it!

Picture Day 2 is a part of Collective Futures, a broader initiative celebrating and documenting Philadelphia’s independent arts community. Picture Day 2 is generously supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

As part of Picture Day 2, Practice Gallery will be transformed into a professional photography studio, creating an opportunity for Philadelphia artists to have a professional portrait taken free of charge.

Artists are invited to visit Practice Gallery on:

First Friday October 2, 6-9 pm
Saturdays & Sundays , 2–6 PM

No fee is required to participate. Artists can simply stop by during portrait hours to have their photograph taken.

The individual portraits will become part of a physical Picture Day 2 yearbook, creating a lasting record of the artists and creative community participating in the project. The large Picture Day 2 group photograph will appear as the centerfold of the publication, connecting the individual portraits to the larger collective image.

The yearbook will serve as a physical archive of Philadelphia’s arts community in 2026, documenting the people who are making, organizing, teaching, exhibiting, performing, and building culture throughout the city.

About Practice

Practice Gallery seeks to support artist practices that focus on performance, participation, and experimentation. Practice’s governing body is composed of a group of artists and art workers who produce or do not produce art works in a variety of mediums both physical and metaphysical. Our current members include Jessica Beckwith, RIchie Brown, Dave Hannon, Rich Hogan, Jerry Kaba, Margaret Pezalla-Granlund, and Alfred Rosenbluth. We meet each month to decide how best to govern and curate the space. Each exhibition is determined by a democratic consensus.