Forman Arts Initiative

The Forman Arts Initiative campus spans three buildings on the 2200 block of North American Street. Each one has a story. This is Building 1 — the Substation.

* Built in 1892 by the Northern Electric Light Company, it started as a generating station — powering the neighborhood before PECO acquired it in 1917 and held it until 1999

* From there it passed through a woodworking shop and a metal fabrication studio, responsible for the chimney that became a pizza oven (see slide 4 🍕)

We love imagining all the lives this building has held, and all the new memories still being made here.

More soon with Building 2.

Image Descriptions
Slide 1 — [Campus exterior]
Slides 2 & 3 — Philadelphia Electric Company's Richmond Power Station, Library of Congress
Slide 4 — Gathering around the chimney turned pizza oven

👋 Meet Isabel Kokko!

Designer, registrar, and arts administrator in training — Isabel is the quiet creative force behind what you see from us. From team headshots to art labels, her fingerprints are all over this place. She's always thinking about how design and everyday
interactions shape the way people experience it.

Usually she's the one behind the camera — we're glad we got her in front of it.

—
Image 1: Headshot of Isabel Kokko, FAI team member, smiling at the camera. 

Image 2: A dinner table captured by at a recent cultivation dinner.

A few weeks ago, 184 artists from Kensington and surrounding zip codes applied for the Art Works: Kensington 250 Microgrant. These are the seven people with the meaningful, and not easy, job of reviewing every single one:

↳ Leann Ayers, Senior Program Officer at Philadelphia Foundation ()

↳ Jeannine Cooke, writer, educator, founder of Harriet's and Ida's bookshops () (, )

↳ Luis Cruz, entrepreneur, founder of Ride Free and Anti-Violence Program Manager at Impact Services ()

↳ Rafael Damast, curator and Exhibitions Program Director at Taller Puertorriqueño ()

↳ Sunanda Ghosh, Interim Executive Director of Forman Arts Initiative

↳ Roberto Lugo, ceramic artist and Pew Fellow ()

↳ Nilda Pimentel-Perez, community organizer and Founding President of NSCAN ()