Scribe Video Center was a 2023 recipient of a $31,000 general operating grant from Impact100 Philadelphia for our Arts & Culture focus area.
The work of Scribe over the past 40 years has been to celebrate, protect and conserve the Philadelphia region’s cultural history using digital media making as a means to capture and record art, stories and spaces that represent Philadelphia’s past and current day values. They provide and present art and culture in their programming space located in West Philadelphia, on-line in a virtual manner and at program partner sites regionally and nationally.
To fulfill their mission Scribe supports and strengthens the ability among individual artists and community groups to promote a vision through digital media with their Community Production Programs, Workshops, Screenings, Special Events and Radio Programming. Scribe uses media to foreground, social, political and cultural issues, both historical and contemporary, that are important to people in our region. Scribe shines a special light on the overlooked stories of Philadelphia’s sizable working-class Black and Brown communities.
“We ground our work in the philosophy that the stories contained in the time-based media work, specifically the documentary, are extraordinarily powerful ways to communicate and share across cultures and communities. We have found that this is particularly significant in a large, diverse neighborhood-oriented city such as Philadelphia, where racial and residential segregation leads to an emphasis on things that differentiate inhabitants rather than on the things that we share.”
Scribe’s artistic legacy includes having produced more than 500 documentary works on video, having provided more than 7,000 people with high quality technical training in media production, having hosted in person film and video screenings attended by an audience surpassing 75,000 and broadcasts that have reached millions. The National Endowment for the Arts and the academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have recognized Scribe for the work they do in expanding access to media making for ethnically diverse populations. Scribe’s catalogue of video and audio media represents a history of Philadelphia told from the perspectives of its communities and individual citizens. Scribe has received honors in the areas of culture, preservation and diversity. Their documentaries have been broadcast on PBS, and screened at a variety of places regionally, nationally and internationally where they spark conversation and alter attitudes.
Since receiving the $31,000 Impact100 grant in 2023, Scribe has continued its ongoing programming of Workshops, Screenings and Community Production Programs. The grant funds helped them hire guest curator, Yvonne Michelle Shirley, to assist in programming their current season of screenings. Yvonne Michelle Shirley is a filmmaker and director of the Community Media Center at Express Newark, a center for socially engaged art at Rutgers University-Newark.
Upcoming Screenings at Scribe include, “Storyville: With Hope” (January 12, 2024), “Producers Forum: Sharon Hayes” (January 22, 2024) and “Storyville: Queen Mother” (February 2, 2024).
To get more detailed information on the above screenings and other captivating, compelling and insightful screenings, please go to https://scribe.org/screenings.
Volunteer opportunities are available to assist at these screenings to register and manage attendees. Scribe’s volunteer coordinator contact can be reached at [email protected].
Scribe is currently recruiting applicants for their Documentary History Project for Youth. More details about the project and the application (due on 2/23/24) can be found on Scribe’s website at www.scribe.org. The link to apply is https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/P3YPXLY.