DREAM DIFFERENT: A Wonder Rebellion

Temple Contemporary presents DREAM DIFFERENT: A Wonder Rebellion, a group exhibition bringing together artists, architects, educators and designers whose work explores play, imagination and everyday acts of attention as responses to digital overwhelm and disembodiment. 

As conversations about technology increasingly focus on fractured attention and information overload, DREAM DIFFERENT shifts the conversation from individual habits to the shared environments that shape how we connect with one another and the world around us. Through installations, sculpture, participatory works and photographs, the exhibition considers how creativity, physical play, close observation and gathering can become acts of restoration. 

The participating artists and organizations examine how small acts of curiosity can reshape our relationships to place and to one another. Their work recalls the value of public gathering spaces, creative expression and shared experiences, proposing that these everyday practices remain essential to building more connected and imaginative communities. 

By bringing these diverse artistic perspectives together, DREAM DIFFERENT invites visitors to slow down, look closely and imagine different possibilities for the places they call home. 

Curated and designed by Dr. Matthew Kenyatta, participating artists include Jan Vormann (Berlin, Germany), whose practice encompasses sculpture, ceramics and public intervention; Michael Velliquette (Madison, Wisconsin), working in paper; nnennia mazagwu (Philadelphia), working across furniture and design; James Rojas and John Kamp (Oakland and Los Angeles, California), whose work engages architecture, environmental design and planning; Magnus Juliano (Columbus, Ohio), working in fiber and sculpture; SoSo Capaldi (Philadelphia), working across ceramics, sculpture and illustration; Linda Fernandez and Martha O’Connell of Site and Story (Philadelphia), working across painting, design and illustration; Nick Autiello (Providence, Rhode Island), working in painting; Pedro Neves and Amira Hegazy (Chicago), working across graphic design, typography and printmaking; and Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson (Philadelphia), working across sound and sculpture. The exhibition also includes Sarah Lytle of the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network and archival photographs from the George D. McDowell Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and Friends Neighborhood Guild Collections at Temple University’s Special Collections Research Center.

Temple Contemporary 
Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University 
2001 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA 19122 
Enter the building’s Norris Street entrance between N. 12th and N. 13th Streets. 

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11am–6pm. Admission is free and open to the public.