Piecing It Together pairs two Philadelphia landscapes that used to be connected and have since grown apart. Curated by InLiquid as the latest installment in Hyatt Centric Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia’s ongoing Makers Series, the exhibition examines Wissahickon Valley Park and the Kensington neighborhood — once linked by Indigenous heritage and the city’s industrial past, now shaped by deindustrialization into dramatically different places. Two artists, two mediums, one shared question about what transformation actually leaves behind.

Two Philadelphia Landscapes, Two Ways of Seeing Them

For Piecing It Together, Joseph Opshinsky works the Wissahickon side in cut-paper collage — vibrant, layered compositions of forests, waterways, and abandoned industrial sites now reclaimed by plants and animals. The Scranton native and Keystone College/University of the Arts graduate has work in the permanent collection of the State Museum of Pennsylvania, and his pieces for this show sit right at the meeting point of nature and post-industrial space.

Michael Morgan takes Kensington. A ceramic sculptor originally from the south of England, Morgan studied at Wolverhampton Polytechnic before immigrating to the U.S. in 1988 and earning his MFA in Ceramics at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln — he’s since served as an artist-in-residence at The Clay Studio and received the American Clay Artist Award. For Piecing It Together, Morgan excavated ceramic shards from his former Kensington neighborhood and fused the broken pieces back together with a shiny, precious-looking material. It isn’t kintsugi — his sculptures build from disparate fragments into forms that genuinely seem to move, giving new shape to what would otherwise be forgotten debris.

“One uses colored paper; the other uses debris,” said InLiquid Associate Director Sara Zimmerman on what brought the two artists together for this show.

The Opening Reception and Where to See It

Piecing It Together is on view now through Monday, September 7, on the second floor of Hyatt Centric Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia at 1620 Chancellor Street. The Meet the Makers opening reception runs Thursday, July 16, from 5:30 to 7pm — free and open to the public, with complimentary light bites from Patchwork Restaurant and pay-as-you-go craft cocktails from the adjacent bar. RSVP through InLiquid’s website.

Both halves of Piecing It Together are free to see, which makes this a genuinely easy Thursday evening to build around — walk through paper collages of the Wissahickon, then broken Kensington ceramics turned into something closer to sculpture, and see how differently the same city can hold its own history.

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Allan Lane

Philadelphia born and bred, Allan Lane is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of digital magazines. He launched his first publication, SportBikes Inc Magazine in 2010, followed by dosage MAGAZINE in 2019. Recently, Allan launched his third online publication, Club For Man. As a journalist, Allan covers fashion, lifestyle, culture, art, and motorcycles.

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