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Wednesday 11am - 5pm Thursday 11am - 5pm Friday 11am - 5pm Saturday 11am - 5pm

Twelve Gates Arts, 106 N 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA (2025)

06/13/2025

We are excited to introduce July's featured Poet of the Month: aka Aishvarya Arora
Aishvarya will give a reading and lead us through a generative writing workshop from 7pm-8:30pm on July 1st, 2025 at 12Gates, located at 106 N 2nd St. Doors open at 6:30pm and close promptly at 7pm.

Curated by THE POETS' STUDIO is a monthly gathering for local poets who are interested in writing, sharing, and connecting through poetry. This event is free and open to all who are interested in engaging more deeply with lyric and the written word.

To RSVP and learn more about THE POETS' STUDIO, please visit our website or view the linktree in bio!

06/11/2025

On June 3rd, Twelve Gates hosted this month's session of The Poets' Studio, featuring the exceptional Kirwyn Sutherland. He began by sharing selections from his collection jump ship, setting the tone for an evening of introspection and creative exploration.

Through a series of readings and writing exercises, Kirwyn guided participants in using poetry as a form of letter-writing. He introduced the group to Francine J. Harris's poignant suite, Dear Cyntoia Brown, which comprises sixteen poems that serve as a meditation on the number sixteen, the age at which Cyntoia Brown was incarcerated. These poems delve into themes of vulnerability, injustice, and the complexities of adolescence, particularly for Black and Brown girls. Harris's work challenges readers to confront societal perceptions and the often harsh judgments placed upon young women in the justice system.

Inspired by these themes, attendees crafted their own poetic letters. The session concluded with several participants sharing their work aloud, receiving constructive feedback, and offering support to one another.

Curated by Sanam Sheriff, The Poets' Studio is a monthly gathering for local poets interested in writing, sharing, and connecting through poetry. This free event welcomes all who wish to engage more deeply with lyric and the written word.

Stay tuned for our July announcement!

06/06/2025

12 Gates is open today for First Fridays today from 1:30 till 7 PM. Come over and see our new group show called first there was a sea.
Curated by Azra Dawood and featuring artists, Aaron Cohick and Divya Victor; Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall; Utsa Hazarika; and Baseera Khan.

Imagined as a “continuum room,” the space of the gallery explores the shifting intersections of religion and race that have shaped South Asian lives in the United States. It features projects that connect multiple timelines in U.S. history, often through the use of objects and methods that speak to crossings or journeys. The work of the featured artists is further informed by a shared interest and inquiry into the built environment, from the scale of a city neighborhood or the forested ghats of India, down to a concrete sidewalk in suburban USA or the privacy of an imagined interior space in 1940s Harlem. The artists use these different scales as conceptual (and at times physical) scaffolding for their inquiry into race and religion. In doing so, their projects offer a deeper reading of these architectural and urban spaces and, simultaneously, a more nuanced view into both South Asian and U.S. history.

06/05/2025

Open Call for Q***r BIPOC Creatives! 🌈✨

Twelve Gates Arts is seeking original short stories and short films from q***r BIPOC artists and writers!

🗓 Deadline to submit: June 19th
🖼️ Live showcase: June 26th
📍In-person only | Philadelphia

Selected works will be showcased at Twelve Gates Gallery, and featured artists will be invited to speak about their process during the event. Each participating artist will also receive an honorarium.

This is an in-person event, so please submit only if you're able to travel to Philadelphia.

Let your stories move us, shake us, and stay with us. We can’t wait to hear from you!

✉️ Submit or ask questions via [email protected]

05/31/2025

Wondering what we have been watching this summer?
Here are some recommendations from the 12 Gates staff!
Have any suggestions or questions? Use the Google form in our bio to let us know! 💌

05/27/2025

12Gates will be operating adjusted hours on Friday, May 30th for a workshop. We will be open from 11 am to 12 pm and closed from 12 pm to 5 pm.

Currently on view, first there was a sea is a group exhibition curated by Azra Dawood and featuring artists, Aaron Cohick and Divya Victor; Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall; Utsa Hazarika; and Baseera Khan. Visit 12Gates and the show during our regular hours, Thursdays to Saturdays, 11 am to 5pm.

For more information about the show, please visit our website and the linktree in our bio.

05/23/2025

We’re proud to present “first there was a sea,” curated by Azra Dawood and featuring powerful works by Aaron Cohick and Divya Victor, Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall, Utsa Hazarika, and Baseera Khan.

Opening night was filled with thoughtful conversations around partition, immigration, and belonging, thank you to the artists and audience members who shared their insights.

This exhibition is made possible by support from the AARC Asian American Religion in Coalition Project, we're grateful for their partnership in uplifting these important narratives.

🗓️ The show runs through Saturday, August 16, 2025 — don’t miss it!
💬 Have ideas for future programs or exhibitions? Use the link in our bio to share your thoughts.

05/21/2025

We are excited to introduce June's featured Poet of the Month: Kirwyn Sutherland!
Kirwyn will give a reading and lead us through a generative writing workshop from 7pm-8:30pm on June 3rd, 2025 at 12Gates, located at 106 N 2nd St. Doors open at 6:30pm and close promptly at 7pm.

Curated by , THE POETS' STUDIO is a monthly gathering for local poets who are interested in writing, sharing, and connecting through poetry. This event is free and open to all who are interested in engaging more deeply with lyric and the written word.

To RSVP and learn more about THE POETS' STUDIO, please visit our website or view the linktree in bio!

05/16/2025

Finally, we like to introduce the curator of first there was a sea, Azra Dawood! Azra Dawood is an architectural historian, curator, and educator. Her research and teaching critically engages built environments and art practices, studying these in the context of religion, immigration, empire and philanthropy, and anthropogenic change.

Only one more day to the opening of first there was a sea! The show will be open to the public tomorrow, on Saturday, May 17th, at 12Gates, 106 N 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA. Please visit our show during our regular hours, 11 am to 5pm!

first there was a sea is a group exhibition curated by Azra Dawood () and features artists, Aaron Cohick () and Divya Victor (); Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall (); Utsa Hazarika (); and Baseera Khan (). The show will remain on view until August 15th, 2025.

For more information about the show, please visit our website and the linktree in our bio.

05/15/2025

first there was a sea, is taken from Victor’s poem “Hedges,” which appears in the paperback version of CURB and speaks of crossings. CURB, an artist’s book by Aaron Cohick and poet Divya Victor, is designed to extend like a sidewalk and unfold like a tourist map, a type of document that, in an analog media environment, instantly marks the person holding or studying it as a foreigner. A jagged horizon line wraps around one side of the book, suggesting the suddenly distorted vision of a person falling to the ground. The book features poems and sidewalk rubbings that tell a story about the religious profiling and subsequent assaults and murders of South Asians in public spaces in the U.S.

first there was a sea is a group exhibition curated by Azra Dawood () and features artists, Aaron Cohick () and Divya Victor (); Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall (); Utsa Hazarika (); and Baseera Khan (). The show will remain on view until August 15th, 2025.

We invite you to see the featured works and artists at the opening of our exhibition, first there was a sea, this Saturday, May 17th, at 12Gates, 106 N 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA. We will be operating our regular hours, 11 am to 5 am.

For more information about the show, please visit our website and the linktree in our bio.

05/15/2025

first there was a sea is a group exhibition curated by Azra Dawood () and features artists, Aaron Cohick () and Divya Victor (); Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall (); Utsa Hazarika (); and Baseera Khan (). The show opens to the public this Saturday, May 17th, 2025. Please visit 12Gates to see the show at 106 N 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA, during our regular hours, 11 am to 5pm.

The theme of crossings, and of immigration and race, are picked up in Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall’s installation, Selections from the Archive of Bahauddin Alam, 2023 - 2025. Here, a video, portrait, and travel wardrobe trunk (outfitted with patachitra scrolls commissioned by the artists) tell the story of a parafictional figure, Bahauddin “Bobby” Alam, a Bengali sailor turned jazz musician, who migrates to the United States in 1918, and lives as Black in Sugar Hill, Harlem. The artists’ work builds off scholarship by Vivek Bald about South Asian maritime workers on British steamships, primarily Bengali Muslim men, who jumped ship during stops in New York, Philadelphia, and other U.S. cities.

For more information about the show, please visit our website and the linktree in our bio.

05/13/2025

Featured in this post is artist, Utsa Hazarika () and her multimedia installation, Pilgrims/This Is Not That Dawn ( #2). The installation considers the intersecting legacies that connect Dr. King to South Asian politics and immigration. It traces the visible architectural markers of South Asian religious life in the United States today back to the Civil Rights Movement, and the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, which removed racial bias in US immigration policy and offered a legal pathway for South Asians to enter the country. But the voyages were two-way. Dr. King’s engagement with anti-colonial politics in the 1950s and 60s, after a transformative lecture on Gandhian nonviolence by Dr. Mordecai Johnson in Philadelphia, had brought him to India, where he described himself as a “pilgrim.” Through a series of elements—the stamp, a jaali, and archival images and sound—the installation explores the unfulfilled potential of these exchanges by examining casteism and anti-Blackness in Gandhi’s politics, and in South Asian communities.

We invite you to view Hazarika’s work accompanied by the works of other featured artists in our upcoming exhibition, first there was a sea. This group exhibition is curated by Azra Dawood and features artists, Aaron Cohick and Divya Victor; Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall; Utsa Hazarika; and Baseera Khan.

The show will be open to the public at 12Gates, 106 N 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA, this Saturday, May 17th, 2025. We will be operating our regular hours, 11 am to 5 am. For more information about the show, please visit our website and the linktree in our bio.

Twelve Gates Arts

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Wednesday	11am - 5pm
Thursday	11am - 5pm
Friday	11am - 5pm
Saturday	11am - 5pm