Seen/Unseen

Look around. What do you see? Look again. What stories are hidden in plain sight?

Join us as we surface the power at work around us and within us, all the time. As we learn to read its myths loud in our landscapes and in our language, we see our society and ourselves being made. Inside power’s own construction process, can we begin to see its undoing?

Walk with Philadelphian Gigi Guida on a noticing tour of Philadelphia’s iconic City Hall, where we look again and look within. Each episode has a touchstone at City Hall, like the enormous statue of a Quaker atop its clocktower, the public park that acts as its front patio, a plaque for a policeman on its walls, and the subway station that rumbles beneath it.

From there, we go everywhere. To other American cities like Detroit, to social theory, to conversations with strangers and fights at the dinner table. We travel back in time, to 1681, to 1874, to the 1940s, 1960s, to 2020, to ancient commons, to childhood memories from a 2000s kid. Along the way, we meet three city-dweller storytellers who ask us to pay attention - and see as they do.

When you truly look at yourself and your city, can you see new worlds already alive in this one? Can you see the seeds to something new?

Visit seen-unseen.cargo.site for images and transcripts.

This series began as a senior thesis at the University of Michigan, and is supported by The University of Michigan Arts Initiative.