The city’s premiere architecture and design event will this year include an art show benefiting an LGBT organization that is building itself from the ground-up.
A fundraiser for Foyer of Philadelphia will kick off at 6 p.m. Oct. 19 at Triumph Brewery, 117 Chestnut St.
Foyer, which works to meet the needs of LGBT youth struggling with homelessness, is partnering with Design Philadelphia, running through Oct. 23, for the event.
Tickets are $10 at the door, and 40 percent of the artwork sold will support Foyer’s upcoming winter shelter, which, in partnership with the Student-Run Emergency Housing Unit of Philadelphia — a collaboration of local college students — and the First United Church of Christ, will provide 10 beds nightly for LGBT youth from December-February.
The local Foyer is modeled after a European concept of youth-service programming and, once its housing programs are fully established, will be the first Foyer in the nation to cater specifically to LGBT youth.
Foyer of Philadelphia executive director Leigh Braden is hoping to spread the agency’s innovative message to a new crowd of supporters through the upcoming show.
“I’m hoping that people who don’t yet know anything about us will be participating in the event,” she said. “Most of our outreach has been within the LGBT community, which has been incredibly supportive of us throughout this entire process, but we also want to open ourselves up to people who may work in construction, architecture or design who will be attending [Design Philadelphia]. We want to expose this housing concept to a whole new audience and hopefully get even more support.”
Information about the local Foyer, as well as the international Foyer Federation, will be available for guests at the art show.
The art itself will be on sale for $200-$1,000.
Artists include Ellen Abraham, Sandra Benhaim, Mike Izzo, Mary Kane, Kathy Sereni, Andrea Korff and Fay Stanford — whose work ranges from photography to drawings to paintings.
“We cast out a net among local artists and got a real wide range of people who responded,” Braden said. “It’s really eclectic but they’re all people who want to support the work we’re doing with LGBT youth.”
In addition to the pieces for sale, the first installment of photographer Kathy McLean’s “Images of Homeless LGBTQ Youth in Philadelphia” will be unveiled.
McLean’s year-long project focuses on a series of teens and the triumphs and pitfalls they face while contending with homelessness, with some of the images captured at QSpot, a bimonthly LGBT safe space offered by a coalition of local agencies, including Foyer.
“Her series follows the lives of these five or six young people who are currently homeless or who’ve been homeless recently and, through her photography, she documents really what their everyday life looks like,” Braden said.
Braden said organizers are hoping to raise up to $3,000 from the show, which will support this winter’s pioneering program.
For more information about the show, search for Foyer of Philadelphia on Facebook.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].