Spiral Q

Peoplehood partner profile: Korea Peace Committee Philadelphia is a group of activists committed to the end of the Korean War, the demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula, the end of sanctions and hostilities against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), and supporting reunification and democracy movements led and defined by Koreans
They prioritize direct action, political education and collaboration with like-minded groups. They are anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist, and therefore in solidarity with liberation struggles and organizing efforts directed at ending U.S. occupation around the world.

Tigers once roamed wild on the Korean peninsula, and are common characters in minhwa, Korean folk art. They represent strength and resilience, often cast as protectors or guardians, and are sometimes comedic. chose to make a tiger puppet for Peoplehood, 2025, both fierce and funny, whose stripes form the word UNITY, showing the historic unity of the Korean people, and the organization’s sense of unity with global liberation struggles.

Our tiger was designed by KPCP member Tommy McShane .a.gotchi , with support from Spiral Q Peoplehood artist Maisie O’Brien & Eurhi Jones .jones and fabricated with help from KPCP members and Spiral Q volunteers.

Thank you to Eurhi Jones, Steph Czapla, Hanbit Kwon, and for video and photos

Peoplehood Pageant spotlight🙏Compost and Milkweed
The Peoplehood parade transitioned into the pageant performance in Clark Park where there stood three Philly row homes and a giant compost pile puppet, a symbol of restorative justice: nothing and no one can be tossed away, and everything can be transformed with time and energy. Over the pageant performance our organizing partners threw systems and practices that no longer serve us, such as broken public transit systems, cash bail, housing inequality, and fences that separate us, into the compost pile to be transformed.

But compost needs more than our waste; it needs water, which is also a force for change, to grow. The compost accumulates and grows over the course of the pageant, with the band accentuating the movements and speeches of our narrator who is the tender of the compost. As the compost was fed the audience chanted “I protect me, we protect we” to encourage the growth of a giant milkweed plant growing out of the compost pile which bloomed into a soft landing place for a monarch butterfly. The worms in the compost pile danced all pageant long, stealing the show which in its entirety became a symbol of all the beautiful things we can grow/build if we worked together.



Team shout out:
Milkweed artists: Lou Hemler, Jamie Campbell
Butterfly artist Maisie O'Brien
Compost artists- Asa Heaps, Ro Adler, Lily Grace, KP Pettigrew Kathryn Briggs ,our incredible compost tender Sam Rise and everyone else who helped them come to life.
Concept and development: Rachel O'Hanlon Rodriguez, Sunshine O'Dea

Video and photos provided by Lori Waselchuk, Rachael Warriner, Joe Piette