{"id":1024948,"date":"2026-08-26T09:33:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T09:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1024948\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T09:33:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T09:33:18","slug":"can-philly-art-map-replace-instagram-for-your-latest-local-art-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1024948\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Philly Art Map replace Instagram for your latest local art news?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want to explore local art, but don\u2019t know where to start? The Philly Art Map<\/a> is here to point you in the right direction.<\/p>\n

The new app was created as a one stop shop to see where creative programming is happening near you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to create this as a gift for the arts community,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years, Instagram\u2019s been even more complicated to navigate because of the changes in the algorithm,\u201d PAM said. \u201cI mean, I don\u2019t know about you, but when I open my Instagram, I see 10 posts of people I don\u2019t even follow before I see one of somebody that I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philly Art Map is hoping to be a new kind of social media experience \u2014 bringing all the benefits of sharing a show online and streamlining it into one artistic space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel very strongly and caring towards the [Philly] community,\u201d PAM said. \u201cBut we also have some real challenges here, such as not having as much money flowing through the arts and visibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Different artistic happenings around Philadelphia. (Courtesy of Philly Art Map)<\/p>\n

The artist modeled the map after similar apps such as Curate LA<\/a> Los Angeles or See Saw<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, unlike other city art apps, local galleries and spaces don\u2019t have to pay a fee to submit their upcoming shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy keeping this a platform that any artist venue or art venue could publish on for free,\u201d PAM said, \u201cit actually gives us a chance to give everybody more visibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tech for tangible experiences<\/p>\n

Philly Art Map is not available in the app store, but rather, it\u2019s a web app that can be added to your home screen. It\u2019s an alternative source for art news and promotion.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhiladelphia right now, there are some really wonderful magazines like Census, that\u2019s print only, that has popped up recently,\u201d said Emily Logan, the editor in chief of Space on Space Magazine<\/a>. \u201cBut I think with Art Blog closing in 2025<\/a> and Title Magazine being on pause, and the Philadelphia Inquirer hasn\u2019t had an art critic since 2020, there\u2019s just a lack of art discourse.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Logan recently joined Philly Art Map and has been helping with editorial work for the past month. \u201cI\u2019m trying to help build that back up again,\u201d she said. She believes in helping artist-run spaces that may not have the marketing budget to pay for advertising.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think art is incredibly transformative, especially now when our society is so hyper-digital and people are on their phones all the time,\u201d Logan said. \u201cThere\u2019s something really wonderful about seeing art in person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Philly Art Map\u2019s main cover page (Courtesy of PAM)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that I had been wanting to create for several years,\u201d PAM said. \u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, they decided to use an AI coder to help them bring their vision to life. While using AI was not PAM\u2019s first choice, they felt the app would have taken a much longer time to get completed \u2014 if ever \u2014 without it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as AI is very frustrating to me in a lot of capacities, I do kind of believe that it\u2019s a tool,\u201d PAM said. \u201cA lot of the negative things that we\u2019re seeing out of AI is really because of the lack of ethics and care by the people behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very experimental city for the arts. I think artists can try things, sometimes fail, and it\u2019s okay. It\u2019s a really collaborative community,\u201d Logan said. \u201cIt\u2019s really a warm and friendly city to be an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA very experimental city for the arts\u201d<\/p>\n

Artists and curators are already submitting shows in the area on Philly Art Map.<\/p>\n

Libby Rosa<\/a> is an artist, curator and founder of Philly\u2019s Peep Projects. She is excited that the Philly Art Map is already promoting Collective Futures \u2014 a six-week, citywide project featuring artist-run spaces that she is taking part in in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m curating in the Icebox Project space, and we\u2019re taking over this large space, and we\u2019re recreating a kind of nostalgic mall,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The space will contain different storefronts with different themes. Rosa is building one, for example, that is recreation of Grendel\u2019s Lair<\/a> \u2014 a 1970s Philly disco club that her uncle was a promoter for in the \u201870s and \u201880s.<\/p>\n

\"\"Philly Art Map highlights events in the area and provides background details. (Courtesy of PAM)<\/p>\n

Rosa also helped do some beta-testing with the art map app. She\u2019s excited for a new way to promote creative ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I like about [Philly Art Map] is that it\u2019s simple, and it really just gets to the point,\u201d she said. \u201cHere\u2019s a map. Here\u2019s the shows that are up right now. Here are openings. Boom! That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really just depends on if all of us choose to keep it up,\u201d Rosa said. \u201cAnd to deem this thing to be where we efficiently and effectively show what we\u2019re working on.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, PAM said, people seem to be buying into the app.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first month, it had over 26,000 visits, which is an overwhelming response,\u201d they said. \u201cEverything about this was with the intention of building something that gives back to the art, and I don\u2019t think we get to see that a whole lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. Want to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1024949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,23038,648,12043,1322,38781,1448,2830,1311,410061,345,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1024948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america","tag-app","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-featured","tag-fun-events","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philly-art-map","tag-social-media","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117161126368096133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1024948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1024948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1024948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1024948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}