This is the third post in our fourth season of Philly Street Art Interviews! This season is sponsored by Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) and its @PHLAirportArt program, which curates museum-quality art exhibitions that introduce millions of visitors from around the world to the vibrant artistic culture of the region. PHL proudly supports Philly arts and culture/365! Interview and photos by Streets Dept Lead Contributor Eric Dale.

Plaque to the Future is an ongoing project that brings unique personal anecdotes to the streets of Philadelphia in the form of custom stickers (which the creator tells me are now locally printed). The design of the stickers—right down to the sometimes unbelievably awkward spacing of the words—parodies the iconic blue plaques installed by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission throughout the state as historical markers.

Thanks to the recognizable design language of our blue historical plaques, these stickers are truly a perfect idea—they’re so simple and clever that they just immediately click with anyone who happens to discover one on the streets. They’re actually so simple that anyone can make their own, and the creator of the project encourages this by providing the template for download on her website.

I sat down with the creator of Plaque to the Future to learn more about the significance of this project. And of course I had to start with the name.

Street’s Dept’s Eric Dale: First, is there any particular connection to Back to the Future, or is that just a fun pun?

Plaque to the Future: No, it’s a fun pun. I guess it’s connected to it in the sense that the project is predicated on the idea that geographic spaces exist simultaneously at different times. They kind of overlap on each other. And so I guess the movie has that element of the town in the past and the present and the future. But beyond that it’s just a fun pun. 

SD: That’s deep enough for me! In 2018, I saw a solicitation for submissions that you had taped up at Benna’s Cafe. Is that something you do a lot? Do you ask for contributions in other venues or areas? 

PF: Yeah, I have a little postcard that just has some of the information about how to submit. I do like to bring them, especially in places in the city where I don’t get to go in my day-to-day life. Mostly because, right now, I have—like every person in Philly—my daily 5-block; 10-block radius. And it’s always fun to me to hear about places I haven’t been. It’s always fun to me to see the variety of the experiences people have with the built environment.

I also am trying to start getting some in different languages, too, because I’ve done a couple in Spanish, since I speak Spanish, but not any of the other many, many languages that are spoken in Philadelphia. And I love the idea that someone can see not only their own stories, but their own culture reflected back at them on the built environment.

SD: How many total submissions have you gotten over the years?

PF: Oh, that’s a really good question. I could look it up for you, but I don’t know. It’s in the hundreds. I also get ones not from Philadelphia, because people really love the idea. So, even though it very clearly states that it’s a Philadelphia project and I am based in Philadelphia, I’ve gotten some from the West Coast, some from other countries, mostly Canada and Mexico. A lot in Pennsylvania, because they’re based off of the Pennsylvania historic plaque, not just the Philadelphia plaque. So I have put one in… where was it? Oh man… Lancaster! There was one in Lancaster, because I went there once.

But I think part of the reason it feels fun to me, and the reason I love doing them, too, is because it’s a parody, it’s an homage to a very recognizable visual pattern or visual template. So I think if I was going to do another city, or if I was helping someone else make the same project happen, I would want it to look like the visual language of that city. So for example, I lived in Mexico City for a couple years, and they don’t necessarily have a standardized one. So I have still been thinking about what the best way to do that would be if I wanted to bring some to Mexico City. But I think what’s particularly fun about it is to see that recognition of a kind of visual language and then to see that it’s something different—it’s kind of a parody and something that’s more of a DIY take on more official documentation.

SD: So what do you look for in a submission?

PF: That’s a great question. I try not to play favorites, in the sense that it doesn’t have to be particularly relevant to me, or interesting to me, or in a part of the city I have a connection to. I actually feel like the more varied the better.

People tend to have a lot of I met my future wife/future partner here. Those are beautiful, but it can get a little repetitive, mainly because I think everyone thinks their love story is unique! But there have been some really amazingly unique love stories, in some different languages.

And I also [look for] love stories that aren’t always just romantic love. There’s one right now that is a mother being reunited with her daughter at the airport after many years. And just those moments of connection between people. I’m trying to find a variety of experiences and types of connection.

I do have a certain love for the absurd, because Philadelphia… I feel like it’s very much a Chaotic Neutral place. So I do have a love for the ones that have these almost Lynchian moments. Those are some of my favorites. But, I’m also trying to get geographic diversity and even timeline diversity. I’ve started doing some of them that are historic. Like, I look up the research, and I’ve connected with some Temple historians. Because, of course, people’s submissions only go back to, at the most, someone’s lifetime. I think Philly has a lot of interesting experiences and stories that were happening in the 1800s, that were happening in more of a, maybe not official capacity, but there are stories about labor history or social movements that I think are overlapping alongside some of these more personal histories.

SD: It’s funny you mention the airport because their Art at the Airport program is actually sponsoring this season. So I was going to ask you anyway if you’ve put up any at the airport!

PF: Well, I haven’t yet, but it’s here in the pile! Somewhere.

SD: That’s great. Do you consider this more of an art project or a history project?

PF: More history. I think street art as a concept is intentionally broad, and I love that you guys [at Streets Dept] see it as [art]. It can be experiential, it can be permanent, it can be impermanent… Maybe it’s never permanent, but it at least can be longstanding. It can be, you know, something that moves. I know Shira Walinsky, who’s a local artist, has her murals on a bus now, and that connects with a SEPTA project that connects people to green spaces on the bus. Like, there’s so many ways that street art doesn’t have to be just graffiti or just visual art.

So… I guess I came at it from more of a historian and storytelling perspective, but I do think that the physical manifestation of the work on the streets of Philly, and also the visual aspect of it, is what makes it particularly interesting to people. And also just… catches their attention in a time and place that we live where many things are vying for our attention at all times. 

SD: When The Inquirer wrote about you, they quoted a historian who said that your project “denigrates the process of getting an official historical plaque.” What’s your response to that?

PF: My response to that is this is very much a parody, and a “people’s power” version of the plaques. I very much don’t believe that anyone could think that one of these plaques is [authentic]. At some point, I read about—maybe it was in the [Inquirer] article—about how expensive [real historical markers] are to install. So, it’s a state-run project, it takes multiple edits, it’s metal. I intentionally print [mine] as vinyl since they’re pretty easy to take off if you put them in a good spot. And I actually think it’s important that it doesn’t stay as a permanent fixture the same way that a permanent sign would.

But, again, it’s a parody, it’s an homage, I think it very much celebrates the great work that’s been done but also finds a new way to kind of explore some stories that might not ever rise to the reverence of a real historic plaque.

SD: You provide your blue plaque template for download so that others can make their own. I think the most notable example of this is probably when an artist created a wheatpaste plaque for the Great Philly Sinkhole at 6th and Bainbridge. Do you know of any other examples of folks spreading your idea?

PF: I just had one… let’s see. It was a public school.

SD: This would be such a great school project for a bunch of kids to do! Oh man, that’s great.

PF: Yeah, so, it was a public school teacher. (And I do like to hear, like, what kind of stories, because I want to make sure that it’s not being used in any way that is denigrating towards any group of people. Since it is a parody and an homage, I wouldn’t want it to be used in any negative way.) But it was a second grade public school class that was using them for their neighborhood. They were learning about local government, and they wanted to talk about how does someone experience the neighborhood? What are your favorite spots? Where do you like to go with your family? So that was pretty cute.

And then there was an older adults center that also used the template recently. I have also sent it to people in Pennsylvania that are not in Philly because I know that I won’t be able to get there.

SD: Right. So obviously real historical plaques sometimes go missing, but your stickers, being non-commissioned, face a constant threat of removal. Do you ever replace them? 

PF: I do. Usually, when someone submits and I write one, I usually print about five of them. And I just, within like three or four months, go back to see if it’s there and replace if so. Based on the neighborhood, based on who has to look at it… there’s a couple that have been taken down more times than others. I think the one that actually lasted the longest was at Jefferson Hospital, which is wild, because that’s right in Center City. I don’t know why it just survived all that time. But it was like 8th and Chestnut or something. Versus there’s one at 10th and Carpenter, near Bardascino Park, that I’ve put up, like, ten times maybe at this point, because I just love it, and I just want people to know about it. And I always get emails about that one being, like, something people like to see.

SD: Sorry, I’m not familiar with “Bardascino Park.” Do you mean “Break-Up Park”?

PF: Haha, exactly. So probably there’s someone there who’s not a fan, and eventually I might stop trying. But yeah, I think when we talk about, like, experiential street art, I would love one day if someone could see a tour of them, or be able to send someone to a particular one. But I also think part of the reason it works is because it’s ephemeral. So, unlike maybe a mural where there’s some amount of temporality, where people continue to see the mural and put it within their experiential tours or whatever, I don’t have that same kind of ability. I have been thinking it would be good to—I do have a Google Map, but it’s not very public. So I was thinking maybe I would start to make sure that’s up to date. Just so you could know, maybe currently there is not a plaque. Just be able to kind of show the variety of stories and geographic places that they’ve been and interacted with the neighborhoods.

SD: Yeah, I love that idea. You know, I’m realizing a very basic question that I didn’t even think to write down beforehand is how many have you put out total?

PF: Oh my god. I don’t know. Probably like over 300, but that’s also [counting] the replacements, too.

SD: Oh! I meant, like, unique locations. 

PF: Oh, maybe like 60? Yeah.

SD: So this project has been mentioned on two massively popular podcasts, 99% Invisible and No Such Thing As A Fish. How did that feel when that happened? And did anything interesting come out of it?

PF: They did not contact me, which is sad, because I love 99% Invisible. Roman Mars is my favorite. But I was very honored. I think that it’s not a unique concept—that idea that storytelling and city planning and design are all very intersected.

But I think that finding ways to engage with people, and their experience of the flâneur concept—the idea that you experience the city as art, and that the [city] in itself is kind of a unique artistic experience… I think that any new avenue by which we can share stories and make connections and connect those stories to the physical reality of the cities that we live in, which are constantly changing—I think that’s very appealing to people, especially people who think about people and cities.

I do think that there’s a lot more to do. I would love, like I said, to do other languages. But also, it has its limitations. I’m just a person. I have to go and put them up and think about it and print them and write them. So I would love to think about ways that I could do workshops or bring in more avenues that people could submit.

But also, it is just a small part of my life. So I really do look to people like 99% Invisible, or Monument Lab, that we have in our own city—people who are kind of rethinking commemoration and memorialization and building storytelling alongside some very difficult stories and narratives that exist in our cities. I look to all those people as kind of doing some of the really cool forward-thinking work. And I just happen to have a little piece of an interesting puzzle.

SD: Well, I know you said it’s not unique at all, but at least in Philly, it’s a pretty different thing than what a lot of artists and people who work in the public space are doing. And it clearly really resonates with people! So why do you think that it’s such a captivating concept to people?

PF: I can only speak for myself, but it’s been… very discombobulating, I think—the pandemic, but also just the experience of being a modern person, especially now. There’s news stories, there’s trauma, there’s so much that’s happening on a global scale, a national scale, a state scale, that sometimes it feels very hard to feel grounded and to remember the webs of connections that we have that are just around the corner; that are our neighbors.

I do think that the pandemic was a beautiful time to kind of re-explore how these networks of loose ties, as they call it in city planning, can maintain us. That it’s not just our friends, it’s not just our Twitter, but it’s the people we see on our dog walk that make us feel connected to a place and make us feel, you know, human.

And so that’s also part of what I’m trying to do. Not only commemorate and remember stories and give people an opportunity to tell their own stories, but create those weak ties of humanity that connect the physical place you’re standing with your own memories; with someone who you might never meet and who might have a very different experience than you.

I think that all of that kind of helps people feel connected to each other. And also, the city is vast! I myself just learned that the neighborhood I live in was formerly a Jewish neighborhood. I think these little moments of stories allow you to have this little peephole into those layers of different, you know, waves of immigration, and historic moments that might not even be visible anymore in the actual physical environment.

SD: You started doing this almost eight years ago. What have you learned?

PF: So much. I think the connections between people are the things that outlast the physical. Just the pure fact that when people are asked, like, what is a Philly memory you have? Yes, it’s about the location. Yes, it’s about the intersection. But they’re all about an emotional moment that was a reaction to a relationship or the death of a family member, or a reunion, or it was about an experience they had where they were confronted with a relationship of some kind, whether it be this crazy neighbor or their mother cutting their hair…

SD: Or a mugger who gives change…

PF: Or a mugger who gives change… That one was great. Also, someone got hit by a car and they were very nice about it. So I think that is what is very touching to me is that it is still about people. Even though of course it’s mapped onto the city experience, it’s very much about people and it’s very much an emotional state. I think even the historic ones that I’ve looked up… [When I’ve] asked scholars if they have any interest in particular moments, there still is this people power element or this kind of personal touch.

Like, I have one I really like, which is the CIO helped organize a strike in North Philly, but one of the strikers was already scheduled to have his wedding that day. So they just had the wedding during the strike. And that’s so sweet! And to me that’s the kind of thing that as a professor you remember not these big moments, but these kind of human moments that intersect with the history of the city. So I think that’s been really fun to just see that, like, that is what people think of when they’re asked. Of all the millions of experiences that they have on a daily basis, it’s still very much about people and the ways in which we live together.

SD: So you already touched on this briefly, but if you ever moved to a different city, do you think you would keep doing this? Or is this just a Philly thing?

PF: I would love to do it somewhere else. I just think it would look different. In my own work—not on this project, but in city planning or in work that has to do with organizing—it’s so dependent on the context. So I think in this city, people often live very parallel lives. They don’t get the experience of getting to talk to each other on a day-to-day basis, but in a smaller town, maybe it makes a little less sense. Maybe there’s a different way to tell stories. Maybe in a city that doesn’t have the same experience of commemoration through plaques, it could be a different kind of storytelling, whether that be audio or video or whatever.

So I would love to do it somewhere else, but I think it would have to be dependent on the place. Obviously, it’s fun; you can see this somewhere else—but you wouldn’t have the same memory of seeing that particular kind of blue or that shape. 

SD: That connection to the original source.

PF: Right.

For more about the origins of Plaque to the Future, check out our brief prior interview.