Past Lives, Surfaced by Skilled Hands

Members Work is showing Past Lives, Surfaced by Skilled Hands at Market East, 924 Market Street, now through December 31. It's a group exhibition featuring 22 artists, all working from reclaimed and repurposed materials. The title gives you the gist: taking things that had a previous life and turning them into something new.

Members Work is a Philadelphia artist collective. The members first met at NextFab, the South Kensington makerspace, where they were all studio residents and went through an Artisan Accelerator program. This is their second show; their first, Philadelphia @250: Living Room, also happened there. For this one, they've moved into an empty storefront on Market Street with support from Circular Philadelphia, a nonprofit that runs a reuse and zero-waste hub.

The space is part of Meantime on Market, the largest activation to date of Meantime, a nonprofit founded in 2024 by Brian Phillips, founding principal of the architecture firm Interface Studio architects (ISA). Meantime was inspired by the post-pandemic struggle of small businesses; it matches creative entrepreneurs with vacant storefronts, offering rent-free space for the first three months and a profit-sharing model after that. The storefront doesn't just hold the art—it includes a living room and workspace for informal artist talks and workshops, plus sewing and mending classes, sketch nights, and a pop-up refillery.

Past Lives, Surfaced by Skilled Hands is open Wednesdays through Sundays, 12 PM to 7 PM, now through December 31. You can find it at 924 Market Street in Center City.