Jacques-Jean 'JJ’ Tiziou

Walk Around Philadelphia: Ecotopian Toolkit

2022

Jacques-Jean “JJ” Tiziou (he/him) creates public art experiences, hosts house concerts, and works as a Licensed Massage Therapist. He has walked the full perimeter of the city (nine times.)

JJ has been recognized as one of Philadelphia’s “Creative Connectors” by Leadership Philadelphia, and is the recipient of the Spiral-Q Artist Activist Award; his 85,000 sq. ft. How Philly Moves mural at PHL International Airport was recognized as one of the nation’s best public art projects by Americans for the Arts in their Public Art Network Year in Review.

Based at The Cedar Works in West Philadelphia, JJ uses his work to celebrate community & cultivate connection. You can find more of his work online at www.jjtiziou.net, www.HowPhillyMoves.org, and there’s a message that he’d like to share with you at www.EveryoneIsPhotogenic.com. At www.WalkAroundPhiladelphia.com, he invites you to join him in exploring the city’s edge.

Walk Around Philadelphia Ecotopian Toolkit uses a signpost installation on Penn’s Landing and a map to invite contemplation of watershed issues through exploration of Philadelphia’s borders. The wayfinding sign points not only to parks and tributaries and environmental centers, but also to water treatment plants, industrial sites and toxic waste sites. The letterpress print depicts how water flows unimpeded across arbitrary borders while an accompanying postcard invites exploration of watershed-relevant sites around the city’s edge. Both map and signpost invite viewers into deeper embodied understandings of the complex relationships between city and environment through the practice of walking the landscape.