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Want to explore local art, but don’t know where to start? The Philly Art Map is here to point you in the right direction.
The new app was created as a one stop shop to see where creative programming is happening near you.
“I wanted to create this as a gift for the arts community,” said PAM, the anonymous artist behind Philly Art Map. While Instagram used to be the place to stay updated on all Philly art happenings, lately PAM noted that the platform has become less user friendly.
“Over the years, Instagram’s been even more complicated to navigate because of the changes in the algorithm,” PAM said. “I mean, I don’t know about you, but when I open my Instagram, I see 10 posts of people I don’t even follow before I see one of somebody that I do.”
Philly Art Map is hoping to be a new kind of social media experience — bringing all the benefits of sharing a show online and streamlining it into one artistic space.
“I feel very strongly and caring towards the [Philly] community,” PAM said. “But we also have some real challenges here, such as not having as much money flowing through the arts and visibility.”
Different artistic happenings around Philadelphia. (Courtesy of Philly Art Map)
The artist modeled the map after similar apps such as Curate LA Los Angeles or See Saw in New York, but made it purely Philly focused. Users can search by neighborhood or date to find an exhibition near them, then curate and save their own map.
What’s more, unlike other city art apps, local galleries and spaces don’t have to pay a fee to submit their upcoming shows.
“By keeping this a platform that any artist venue or art venue could publish on for free,” PAM said, “it actually gives us a chance to give everybody more visibility.”
Tech for tangible experiences
Philly Art Map is not available in the app store, but rather, it’s a web app that can be added to your home screen. It’s an alternative source for art news and promotion.
“Philadelphia right now, there are some really wonderful magazines like Census, that’s print only, that has popped up recently,” said Emily Logan, the editor in chief of Space on Space Magazine. “But I think with Art Blog closing in 2025 and Title Magazine being on pause, and the Philadelphia Inquirer hasn’t had an art critic since 2020, there’s just a lack of art discourse.”
Logan recently joined Philly Art Map and has been helping with editorial work for the past month. “I’m trying to help build that back up again,” she said. She believes in helping artist-run spaces that may not have the marketing budget to pay for advertising.
“I think art is incredibly transformative, especially now when our society is so hyper-digital and people are on their phones all the time,” Logan said. “There’s something really wonderful about seeing art in person.”
Philly Art Map’s main cover page (Courtesy of PAM)
While there may be something a bit ironic about creating an app to get people off their phones, PAM believes in tech with intention. Building Philly Art Map is an idea that they have had for a long time.
“It’s something that I had been wanting to create for several years,” PAM said. “But the biggest roadblock that I was hitting in the past was not having the full technical skills needed, as well as funding to maybe hire an engineer.”
Ultimately, they decided to use an AI coder to help them bring their vision to life. While using AI was not PAM’s first choice, they felt the app would have taken a much longer time to get completed — if ever — without it.
“As much as AI is very frustrating to me in a lot of capacities, I do kind of believe that it’s a tool,” PAM said. “A lot of the negative things that we’re seeing out of AI is really because of the lack of ethics and care by the people behind them.”
The artist has chosen to stay anonymous, so the focus of the app remains community-forward. Now that the map has been built, they said, the submissions and editorial work that appear on Philly Art Map are completely human-run and edited. Ultimately, Logan noted the art map is meant to be a celebration of the Philly art scene.
“It’s a very experimental city for the arts. I think artists can try things, sometimes fail, and it’s okay. It’s a really collaborative community,” Logan said. “It’s really a warm and friendly city to be an artist.”
“A very experimental city for the arts”
Artists and curators are already submitting shows in the area on Philly Art Map.
Libby Rosa is an artist, curator and founder of Philly’s Peep Projects. She is excited that the Philly Art Map is already promoting Collective Futures — a six-week, citywide project featuring artist-run spaces that she is taking part in in October.
“I’m curating in the Icebox Project space, and we’re taking over this large space, and we’re recreating a kind of nostalgic mall,” she said.
The space will contain different storefronts with different themes. Rosa is building one, for example, that is recreation of Grendel’s Lair — a 1970s Philly disco club that her uncle was a promoter for in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Philly Art Map highlights events in the area and provides background details. (Courtesy of PAM)
Rosa also helped do some beta-testing with the art map app. She’s excited for a new way to promote creative ideas.
“What I like about [Philly Art Map] is that it’s simple, and it really just gets to the point,” she said. “Here’s a map. Here’s the shows that are up right now. Here are openings. Boom! That’s it.”
She’s hoping that other creatives and curators like herself choose to opt in. Ultimately, if the art community buys into the new social platform, the goal will have been achieved.
“It really just depends on if all of us choose to keep it up,” Rosa said. “And to deem this thing to be where we efficiently and effectively show what we’re working on.”
So far, PAM said, people seem to be buying into the app.
“In the first month, it had over 26,000 visits, which is an overwhelming response,” they said. “Everything about this was with the intention of building something that gives back to the art, and I don’t think we get to see that a whole lot.”