Embracing self and others: encountering animals in Philadelphia murals

ABSTRACT

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has numerous murals that relate expressions of care about different culture groups, nonhuman animals, the local urban ecosystem, and the environment at large. I discuss these themes in journaled encounters with animals in murals while visiting select Philadelphia neighborhoods during several years. My autoethnographic research is based on photography and making connections with the mural subjects, their symbolism, and related urban spaces. I anchor this study in the literatures of therapeutic landscapes and animality discourses in order to examine how animal mural spaces contribute to establishing “therapeutic assemblages”. My analysis draws me to a rich sense of locals’ care about/for humans and nonhumans that are at times perceived as subaltern, and the local and global environments these animals inhabit. I conclude that Philadelphia’s dynamic landscape alternates in taking down and reaffirming therapeutic places as the city is reconfigured by both gentrification and resistance to urban renewal.

KEYWORDS:

• Therapeutic landscapes
• murals
• Philadelphia
• animality

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Glenn McKibben for our walks exploring Philadelphia murals and her academic work on the topic, which fueled the pursuit of my own research on urban art. I am thankful to Brady Copp for our many excursions to visit murals and the related conversations we had, which help me sort through my feelings towards and understanding of Philadelphia’s urban art and neighborhoods. I am grateful to Courtney Berne, Flavia Lake, Zoe Malot, and Jason Luger for recommendations on relevant literature. I would also like to thank the editor of the Journal of Cultural Geography, Steven Schnell, and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and valuable suggestions. Finally, I am thankful for the wonderful work of all muralists, street artists, and urban-art initiatives discussed in this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Self-funded.

Notes on contributors

Mario Luis Cardozo

Mario Luis Cardozo is an Associate Professor at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Geography classes on techniques and human-environmental themes. Mario's research interests include rural land use and conflict, environmental justice, conservation, urban change, and street art.