About Us:

Carolyn Healy is an installation artist who began her career exhibiting small, abstract assemblages at the Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, in 1979. Since creating a stage set for a performance of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s Ulysses, in1987, she has concentrated on large site-specific installations, many in collaboration with sound and video artist John Phillips. Some of these have been settings for performance events and many have been created for dilapidated industrial or historic buildings. Materials found on location have been incorporated whenever possible, along with other recycled or common objects. The projects have been seen nationally and internationally in museums, university galleries and theaters, as well as numerous alternative sites. Carolyn has received five individual Artist Fellowships in Interdisciplinary Art from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, an NEA New Forms Regional Grant, as well as numerous project support grants from the Leeway Foundation, the Dietrich Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

John JH Phillips is a sound and video artist. His work has included interactive sound installations and audio-visual performances in museums, art galleries, and non-traditional spaces in this country and abroad. Since 1987 he has collaborated extensively with sculptor Carolyn Healy on site-based installations. His musical compositions have been presented at dance and theater venues, on the nationally syndicated radio program New American Radio, and at national and international electronic art festivals such as ISEA and ICMA. His live sound and video performances have been seen in numerous venues in Philadelphia and also in New York City; his composing has been supported by American Composers Forum (collaboration with Pauline Oliveros) and the Millay Colony (composer in residence). To pursue his video work, he has enjoyed residencies at the Experimental Television Center and at Signal Culture, both in Owego, New York. Grants include a fellowship in Sound Art from the National Endowment for the Arts, and several in Media Arts from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Highlights of the artists’ collaborative projects include: a performance/ installation on a river barge with tugboat for Whitman at 200, Philadelphia; an entire cellblock in historic Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia; stage set and sound for performances at LaMaMa and Symphony Space, NYC and the Cini Foundation, Venice, Italy. Installations incorporating artifacts found on site include historic Disston Saw Works and Globe Dye Works, both in Philadelphia, and the Wheaton Arts glass museum and campus in Millville, New Jersey. The artists have created four installations for the Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festivals: in a storefront, warehouse, loft and elevator shaft, as well as commissioned works for the International Computer Music Conferences in Ann Arbor, Michigan and in Beijing, China, and at Suyama Space, Seattle, Washington; Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; Rowan University Art Gallery and Museum, Glassboro New Jersey, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.