Reading Railroad brought back to life with Site/Sound: Revealing the Rail Park
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- There's a free fall festival taking you above and below Center City, and bringing the once-mighty Reading Railroad back to life.
Site/Sound: Revealing the Rail Park is a series of public events, live music performances, art installations and tours.
"This is a very exciting, multi-disciplinary festival," says Jane Golden, Executive Director of Mural Arts Philadelphia.
"We're working with three teams of artists to think about and reflect on the past of the rail park, the present," Golden says. "Then we want people to think together about what it could be."
Each of the three main installations is created by a different team of artists.
Aspect 281, by John Phillips and Carolyn Healy, features sculptures and video in a lot at 990 Spring Garden Street, in a section of the rail park known as the Viaduct.
"They will have a variety of artifacts that relate to the history of trains and signals asking us to really think about the railroad," Golden explains.
The Soon/Now/Gone installation will move through various tunnels and underpasses under the Viaduct.
"Eric Ruin and Rosie Langabeer will be creating this zoopraxiscope," Golden says "projecting images of the past and the present."
The pre-cinema device creates the illusion of motion through a series of rotating glass disks, which contain hand-drawn images played in rapid succession.
Moon Viewing Platform on North 18th Street will use video projections to transform an unused stretch of land known as 'The Cut' into a large-scale performance space.
"It could just be such a hub of creativity, and that's what we want," Golden says.
Each installation has an accompanying musical performance, "everything from very, very contemporary to jazz to classical," Golden says.
The free festival is a collaboration between Friends of the Rail Park, American Composers Forum and Mural Arts Philadelphia.
"We really hope that people from all over the city come and join us," Golden says.
Site/Sound: Revealing the Rail Park | Website |Festival Schedule + Map
October 5-19, 2019
