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In 2023 Shipley led her cohort to Rosine 2.0, a collective based at Swarthmore College that leveraged art practices toward community harm reduction. For that project, Shipley gave the kids cameras and had them walk through Bartram’s Garden taking pictures of each other, then sat down to record three podcast episodes, “Generations Talkin.”
That was Jabbaar’s favorite.
“I really didn’t want to go out that much. Just wanted to stay in the house to be alone,” he said. “But Ms. Sabriaya called and said, ‘We have a photo shoot.’ So I might as well go. It was nice going out there, walking a trail, having fun, taking your pictures with friends.”
The results were included in an installation at the Icebox Project space, at the Crane Arts Building, as “Generational Feasting.”
In 2023 Shipley became the director of Theatre Philadelphia, promoting regional theater and staging the annual Barrymore Awards. She brought her kids along on that ride, too, recording a series of podcasts about plays from the youth perspective, “Act Two: Next Generation.”
“This whole room is a collaboration of my journey as educator with my youth,” Shipley said. “I take them from project to project. I’ll be, like, ‘I’m doing this project. I wrote this grant. You want to do this?’ And they’re like, ‘OK!’ What’s funny is their parents are the same way.”
Each project has an element of fun baked into it, along with a thread of something serious: Shipley is intentionally creating community among Black youth and archiving their works to create connections across time with the Black youth of tomorrow.
“Our Black and Brown students deserve teaching artists, performers, and storytellers to guide them into becoming their own artists,” reads the “Eban Youth” exhibition statement. “They also deserve to see that there is capital in Black and Brown art and how that economic capital is also a part of our Philly and global community’s history.”
When Shipley left Tree House in 2022, she promised the young people she mentored there that she would not leave them behind. When Shipley’s texts started coming again, the teenagers were only too willing to follow.
“Sabraiya’s way of teaching, there’s an undercurrent of love in everything that she does,” Gadson said. “And of giving. You’ve heard her say, again and again: Making space for people.”
The name of the exhibit, “Eban Youth,” references the Ghanaian adinkra symbol, resembling a fence that defines a space for safety and security.
That tracks with Gadson. Sitting in the gallery, she said she felt embraced by a community.
“It has this feeling of togetherness,” she said. “Feels like a family album. It just feels warm, maybe like someone’s maxed-out living room.”
“Eban Youth” will be on view at the Allens Lane Art Center until Feb. 12.
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