Past Projects
Archives some of the Hurford Center’s recent larger initiatives and programs. Contact Associate Director James Weissinger at jweissin@haverford to learn more.
Imagining Abolitionist Futures
Staged during the 2022-23 academic year, Imagining Abolitionist Futures explored the role of the arts and humanities in the struggle to dismantle the carceral state and build reparative practices and institutions in the place of a system driven by racism, retribution, and violence. The series included: talks and panel discussions with scholars, activists, and artists; performances; film screenings; a reading group; a major art exhibition; a two-day symposium; and more.
The Contest of the Fruits
The Contest of the Fruits is a multi-year collaboration with Berlin-based art collective Slavs and Tatars, Philadelphia non-profit Twelve Gates Arts, and the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philadelphia). The Contest of the Fruits is a nineteenth-century allegorical text, written in Uyghur, that captures the possibilities of boundary crossings to cultivate understanding, tolerance, and identity in a pluralistic world. The Contest of the Fruits is supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Summer DocuLab
Summer DocuLab was a donor-funded five-year program that developed student-faculty documentary work in VCAM. Students spent ten weeks both on campus and in the field developing faculty-proposed documentary projects, working with visiting filmmakers, technicians, and other collaborators.
Philadelphia Area Creative Collaboratives (PACC)
Supported by a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Philadelphia Area Creative Collaboratives (PACC) program brought together nonprofit organizations, artists, faculty, students and other community members for collaborations that blended social change, art, and scholarship. Over a four-year period, the program developed creative alliances that paired local, regional, and international artists with students and faculty to work with community nonprofits and civic advocacy groups.