Two Philadelphia arts institutions are joining forces this fall to spotlight the expansive creativity of Swedish artist and designer Moki Cherry (1943–2009). The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) and Ars Nova Workshop (ANW) will present ‘The Living Temple: The World of Moki Cherry,’ the largest survey of the artist’s work ever mounted in the United States. The exhibition opens Sept. 25 and runs through April 12, 2026.
“This partnership between The Fabric Workshop and Museum and Ars Nova Workshop connects two Philadelphia organizations dedicated to contemporary creative practice through artistic collaboration,” said Kelly Shindler, Executive Director at FWM. “Moki Cherry was an artist who exploded the boundaries of art in compelling and ever-surprising ways.”
“Home is stage, stage is home”
Cherry’s work defied easy categorization — textiles, tapestries, ceramics, concert posters, paintings, clothing, sculpture, and video all found their way into her orbit. Her mantra — “home is stage, stage is home” — blended the domestic and the artistic, transforming everyday life into an environment for creative exploration.
The retrospective follows Cherry’s decades-long collaboration with her life partner, American jazz composer and trumpeter Don Cherry, and their children. Moki Cherry’s art integrated global artistic traditions—Swedish folk motifs, South Asian and African textiles, and Indigenous craft practices—without being confined to a singular cultural lineage. The Cherrys’ lifestyle itself was an act of defying borders, creating an art practice rooted in fluid, transcultural exchanges rather than nationalistic definitions of identity.
“Their work anticipated contemporary conversations about migration, diaspora, and cultural hybridity that emerges from global movement,” said Mark Christman, executive and artistic director of Ars Nova Workshop and co-curator of the exhibition.
Lisa Alvarado: ‘Talismans for a Theater of Resilience’
Alongside Cherry’s retrospective, FWM Artist-in-Residence Lisa Alvarado will debut ‘Talismans for a Theater of Resilience,’ a new body of work rooted in fabric, light, and sound.
Alvarado, an artist and musician known for her role in the experimental band Natural Information Society, creates free-hanging abstract paintings and sculptural fabric installations that double as stage environments. Her work draws from Mexican American heritage, suppressed histories, and what she calls “vibrational aesthetics”—a practice informed by rhythm, ancestral memory, and cycles of the natural world.
“For me, the works are material vessels of time, processed through lived experience and charged with the vibrations of life, music and love,” Alvarado said. “They continue to absorb, transform, and build a record of time and place.”
During her residency at FWM, Alvarado explored Philadelphia’s mineral collections, connecting geologic time to broader ideas of resilience and cultural survival. Her new large-scale works—two monumental fabric installations more 19 feet tall—will transform FWM’s eighth-floor gallery into an immersive environment animated by shifting light and sound.
“I think about the way that the landscape can offer textural impressions of memory and the history of change. I like to view resilience from a geologic perspective that relates to the earth’s cycles and systems,” said Alvarado.
If you go
Together, ‘The Living Temple’ and ‘Talismans for a Theater of Resilience’ invite audiences into layered, multisensory spaces where art is inseparable from life. Through Cherry’s expansive vision and Alvarado’s contemporary dialogue, the exhibitions celebrate creativity as a living force—resilient, transformative, and deeply communal.
at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium
Park, in Chicago in 2014.Colin Lyons
‘The Living Temple: The World of Moki Cherry’ and ‘Lisa Alvarado: Talismans for a Theater of Resilience’ run Sept. 25 through April 12, 2026 at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1214 Arch St. For more information, visit fabricworkshopandmuseum.org
