Directions
History
Shiloh Baptist Church Victorian architecture and maze-like interior tell two stories: of the church's first congregation, the Church of the Holy Apostles, and of its second and current congregation, Shiloh. In the 1860s, southwestern center city experienced a building boom, and its many working-class residents needed their own church. The firm of Fraser, Furness, and Hewitt built the grand structure, but the church's tremendous growth, boosted by its Sunday School programs, required various additions in 1873, 1893, 1902, and 1903. Church membership reached over 10,000 by the 1910s, and the church utilized the cutting edge Akron Plan a theater-like plan with individual sections around a large room for its Sunday School. Despite its successes, by the 1940s, the neighborhood demographics were changing, and many of the church's members were moving away. Holy Apostles moved out of the city, and the Shiloh Baptist congregation bought the large church in 1945, utilizing its Sunday School building and other rooms to continue functions popular during Holy Apostles tenure: basketball games, scouting, church group meetings, and Bible study. While the church remained a beacon in the community for many, its attendance has declined significantly in recent years, and the neighborhood followed suit. However, the neighborhood has recently seen a resurgence with the help of community organizations and the steadfast presence of Shiloh Baptist Church.
Research: Sarah L. Hunter
Site Photos: Joseph E.B. Elliott
Sonambulo
Event Info
Saturdays 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM
Sundays 1:00 PM - 7:00 PM
May 30 - June 28, 2009
May 30 - June 28, 2009
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s Sonambulo (1998) is an 11-minute looping sound installation that resembles a field recording of a summer rainstorm. The work begins with a loud gunshot that quickly melds into thunder, subtly revealing the more threatening compositional elements of a seemingly benign soundscape. For the artist, sound is a natural extension of more material sculptural practices. Manglano-Ovalle worked with a sound engineer and mathematician at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Together, they composed the entirety of Sonambulo out of a sample of a single gunshot, recorded in the artist’s neighborhood in Chicago and heard in its original recorded form only at the beginning of the piece. Applying a compositional technique based on fractal equations to the single gunshot recording, Manglano-Ovalle created 385,000 “bullets” that make up the sounds of rolling thunder, rain and even chirping crickets, to round out the environment. The fractal equations allow the piece to feign the familiar narrative of a summer shower through providing enough randomization to prevent the artifice from attaining overt structure or rhythm. The piece mimics the qualities of ambient nature recordings used for contemplation and relaxation.
CHANGE: The Hidden City Soirée will take place on 6/25 at the Armory of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry. Please click on the schedule tab above for details.
Co-Producer: Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia
Webpage: http://www.preservationalliance.com
Support for development and planning of this project has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative.
Artist
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
http://inigomanglano-ovalle.comIñigo Manglano-Ovalle was born in 1961, in Madrid, Spain, and currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. He received B.A. degrees in Art and Art History as well as Latin American and Spanish literature from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 1983. In 1989, he completed his M.F.A. degree in sculpture from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Manglano-Ovalle investigates diverse subjects such as technology, climate, immigration and the global impact of social, political, environmental, and scientific systems. Often working in partnership or employing technical experts across multiple disciplines including engineering, architecture, genomics, and climatology, Manglano-Ovalle produces objects that are often technically complex, formally captivating, and conceptually engaging.
