Gilberts Shoes: In Gratitude, Shoes
Artist(s): Ali Rufrano-Ruffner
12 ft x 6 ft acrylic painting on wood, 35 mm film photographs, film footage of graffiti being covered by new condominium
Location: Francisville, Philadelphia, PA
In the spirit of sharing something I love - I deeply love this place. I made this painting of Gilbert’s Shoe Store which is across the street from my apartment. I watched a new condo be built that covered my favorite hand painted “Free the Hood” stencil on the side of the building and it broke my heart. As I watched it disappear from my window, I was really grieving what is being lost & wanted to make sure that it’s not lost forever - so I made this. I have been learning about the history of this space before it was what I know it to be even because I want to remember other people's past version of the space as I preserve my own.
On June 13th, 2008, Philadelphia police raided the home without a warrant and arrested four Francisville neighbors. They were pulled from their home, arrested, and detained without charges for over twelve hours. The shoe store residents were a group of young folxs doing anti-war, anti-imperialist and international solidarity work; they worked in shelters, mobilized against sexual assault, engaged in prison activism, ran a free food distribution, and were community gardeners. Police tried to paint the Shoe Store residents as a hate-group & also claimed there was anti-police graffiti (the Free the Hood mural) and “propaganda” inside the house. It was of deep concern to the Shoe Store that people understand this raid in the context of gentrification and police brutality in Francisville, and in the city of Philadelphia. My neighborhood has felt this violent pressure consistently.
Francisville showed so much love and support to each other after the raid. Neighbors showed up and helped residents get all of their belongings out when their home was getting trashed by the police. People from the neighborhood and other parts of the city gathered to observe and document the unlawful police raid in action. In the years after, the community came together to turn Gilbert's Shoe's into a collectively-run community center. This painting is about about place-based grief and histories we’ve discovered about our home(s) through painting
xx FREE THE HOOD