May 16, 2026
1 - 2 pm
TILT Institute
Free
Moving between word and image, the call-and-response collaboration between writer Christopher R. Rogers and photographer karim brown improvises a contemporary portrait of present-day Black Philadelphia, replete with the unfinished activism present since the transnational upsurge of the George Floyd Uprising. This experimental essay-as-LP challenges Black Philadelphians to prioritize the urgency of reckoning with our own hang-ups and half-steps to reground ourselves within the daily, prefigurative life-work of rehearsing Black liberation. This is a hyperlocal, future-forward recommitment to ongoing principled struggle and a hopeful model of contemporary self-criticism. The title takes its inspiration from the late, beloved Uptown Philadelphia rapper PnB Rock, whose successful mixtape single “My City Need Something” challenged us all to strive for clarity amid Black suffering in a city resplendent with the embryonic possibilities of Black existence. This program is in response to the exhibition, How We Stay Free, which is currently on view through June 27, 2026. The publication is on sale at TILT, along with the prequel, How We Stay Free: Notes on Black Uprising.
Christopher R. Rogers, Ph.D is a Philadelphia-based cultural organizer and educator with more than a decade of local experience in supporting radical arts and culture. Currently a Facilitator with the W.E.B. DuBois Movement School for Abolition & Reconstruction and co-coordinator of the Friends of the Tanner House, Rogers is the editor (with Fajr Muhammad) of How We Stay Free: Notes on a Black Uprising, published by Common Notions.
karim brown is a documentary photographer living and working in North Philadelphia. Keeping the Black Philadelphia community at the forefront of his mind, he uses photography to intimately engage with Black ways of knowing and doing that he has been immersed in his entire life.
How We Stay Free — April 9 – June 27, 2026
