{"id":205384,"date":"2026-05-29T14:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/205384\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T14:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:20:07","slug":"artphilly-launches-biannual-festival-what-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/205384\/","title":{"rendered":"ArtPhilly launches biannual festival \u2018What Now\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jazimina Creamer-MacNeil, director of \u201cRoot Song,\u201d said the work is inspired by the way trees communicate with each other through fungal networks in a forest floor, as described in the memoir <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/05\/03\/books\/review\/finding-the-mother-tree-suzanne-simard.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cSearching for the Mother Tree\u201d<\/a> by ecologist Suzanne Simard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSuzanne Simard uses all of these musical metaphors, like the forest being a symphony orchestra, and she first discovered that carbon was moving between trees through the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/planet-money\/2025\/08\/26\/g-s1-85185\/plants-fungi-resources-trade-cooperation\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> mycorrhizal network<\/a> using sound \u2014 a Geiger counter \u2014 to hear carbon moving from tree to tree,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I thought this just needs to be a musical performance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adair said the prompt \u201cWhat Now: 2026\u201d gives artists rich ground to explore.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt could involve reflection back to the history of the country, or history of the city. But also you could ask \u2018What Now?\u2019 very in a very present-day way,\u201d Adair said. \u201cWhat now are we dealing with?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adair and Sachs plan to make the \u201cWhat Now?\u201d festival a biannual event, with future festivals asking artists to respond to different thematic prompts.<\/p>\n<p>ArtPhilly\u2019s \u201cWhat Now: 2026\u201d runs in various locations until June 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jazimina Creamer-MacNeil, director of \u201cRoot Song,\u201d said the work is inspired by the way trees communicate with each&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,4001,71,70],"class_list":["post-205384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-250","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}