On one of the busiest avenues in West Philly, at 4522 Baltimore Avenue, there’s a brown door with the number 34 above it.
When you open it and climb a tall flight of stairs, you’ll find yourself on a bright, open floor — with a spacious lounge area on the left and multiple rooms on the right, offering calm and quiet in the middle of a lively, sometimes noisy street.
This is Studio 34, a welcoming center for wellness and community.
If you head up those stairs any day in April or May this spring, past flyers advertising new yoga classes, meditation circles and craft nights, the first thing you’ll see is a new exhibition by Lebanese multidisciplinary artist Tracy Chahwan.
This marks Chahwan’s first solo show — up through the end of May — titled “Alien of Extraordinary Abilities,” which brings together over a decade of her work in various mediums, such as posters, textiles and comics. The exhibition traces her journey from designing posters for Beirut’s music scene in her country of origin to arriving in Philadelphia at the height of the pandemic.
In Lebanon, Chahwan collaborated with the renowned Samandal and Zeez comics collectives, publishing experimental comics and anthologies. Although she had planned to move to France to continue her career, a trip to the U.S. in March 2020 — to visit her now husband — left her stranded in Philly as global lockdowns began.
What was meant to be a short visit turned into a long stay, in a country and city she hadn’t expected to live in, while her home country was still reeling from the 2019 protests.
“I had this life plan to go to France because I got an art residency there,” Chahwan said. “I came to visit and then COVID happened, and everything got cancelled … On this continent, there is this relationship with the U.S. that it’s where you go to make more money or have a better future. For us, in the Middle East, usually everyone goes to Europe, so that’s why I always thought I would end up in Europe rather than the U.S.”
Landing in Philly meant more than a change of address. It meant adjusting to a different culture, a new pace of life and a new way of connecting with other artists.
“It’s been five years. It took me a while to make my own connections,” Chahwan said. “Now I like it because, compared to other cities, there is more of a community atmosphere [in Philadelphia]. But you have to make stuff happen a lot on your own. It’s not like in New York, where there’s a ton of stuff all the time. Here there is a lot happening, but it’s more underground, really underground. It’s hard to figure it out.”
In the exhibit, you can feel how Chahwan processes that cultural shock — with her signature bold, dark lines, vibrant colors and sharp, dark sense of humor. The piece promoting the show, for example, reflects on what the U.S. looked like in 2020, the year she arrived.
“It’s very cartoonish and exaggerated, but I was out to go scan my drawing [for a commission project] and then I see all the broken shop windows and it wasn’t as psychotic as this,” she said. “I drew a humorous thing where I’m here waiting for my green card, and the riots [the George Floyd protests] really reminded me of the riots in Lebanon before I left. So, I just thought it was funny that I’m in the middle of these things everywhere I go.”
The title of the exhibition is a nod to the nonimmigrant O-1 visa for “Individuals with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement,” one that many artists like Chahwan often pursue, though she herself doesn’t hold it. The visa application process demands not only proving your talent, but also navigating high costs and bureaucracy.
“I think it’s a very funny title. ‘Alien’ is already kind of a dehumanizing word, but when you add ‘extraordinary’ next to it … I just thought it was perfect for a comic book title,” she said. A year ago, Chahwan took part in a collective comic series centered around the theme of catastrophe. For it, she created a short comic about her arrival in the U.S. and the cultural clash she experienced, which she titled “Alien of Catastrophic Abilities.” The piece is included in the current exhibition.
Looking back at the life she started on another continent, now tangled up with this country, has also given Chahwan space to reflect on her creative path. “It was very intense. I went in my old laptop! But I think it’s nice to revisit and see what you’ve done, where you are now, how your style evolved,” she said.
As she gave us a tour of the exhibit this week, Chahwan pointed out some of the differences in her earlier work. “When I was much younger, I used to add so many more details and hatching,” she said. “And now, I just can’t be bothered.”
In many ways, Chahwan’s story is one familiar to many immigrants: it takes time to find your place in a new country and a new city. For now, that place is Philadelphia — more specifically, West Philly, the neighborhood she landed in back in 2020 and where she still lives today.
“Morgan [Andrews], the manager of the place, he reached out because he saw a poster I did for the Peoplehood parade,” Chahwan said. “He knew people at Fireball Printing, and they decided to print my posters for free as a donation. That was really nice because I had this vision to have the big wall, but I was like ‘It’s going to cost me $1,000.’ ”
Studio 34 takes pride in being a space where both Philly-based and international artists like Chahwan can come together to share, connect and create.
A West Philly Healing Hub
Stephen Fisher, Angela Norris and James Peniston founded Studio 34 in 2008. Aside from a brief pause between 2020 and late 2021, during the height of the pandemic, the space has remained an active hub in West Philly — offering yoga classes, workshops, arts and cultural activities, and gathering circles, all centered around one idea: wellness.
“The idea of wellness and healing is not just going to the doctor. When you’re looking for alternative modalities of healing, sure, yoga is a thing. We host wellness providers like massage and talk therapy and acupuncture, but the arts are also a healing modality. We listen to music or go to the theater, or we look at paintings to make sense of the world, whether that’s on an emotional, political or intellectual level,” said Andrews.
Andrews is the art curator behind Studio 34’s arts program, 34 Arts. He’s been involved with the studio since its first year — first as a student, then as a theater teacher, performer and yoga instructor, earning his certification right here at the studio.
He sees wellness and healing not just as routine care or problem-solving, but as creating space for joyful, enriching experiences that nourish people emotionally and spiritually. If our body was a house, he suggests as a metaphor, it wouldn’t just need someone to take out the trash every week or fix a leaky roof. “There’s a third kind of maintenance, which is like, wouldn’t it be nice if I had a hot tub? It would be really nice to have a roof deck or plant a tree that has beautiful flowers on it in the front yard,” he said. “It’s also the things that give us joy.”
Beyond its layered vision of wellness, what makes this space special is its intentionally accessible pricing. “Studio 34 is an open, welcoming space, where you can come and connect to community, where cost isn’t a barrier,” said JJ Tiziou, an artist, massage therapist and organizer of Walk Around Philadelphia. He’s also a block captain in Spruce Hill, the neighborhood where the studio is located.
“There’s a lot of yoga studios that will rent you a mat, sell you a water bottle and charge you twice as much for a class. Where Studio 34 will have an affordable cost and a sliding scale membership fee and a work-trade option, and they’re going to loan you all their mats for free, and then they’re going to let you fill your bottle from the water dispenser and offer you a free cup of tea. And in fact, invite you to come up into that lounge and have a free cup of tea and read your book on their couch in their beautiful, light-filled space without giving them any money,” he said. “That is like a real community service.”
That same philosophy extends to the arts. The studio offers open, free meetups in the lounge, drawing circles and poetry groups. “And you can pay something, or you can pay nothing. And then all our arts events also are ‘pay what you can.’” Andrews said. “We would never turn anyone away for an arts event.”
Andrews’ job is demanding. “I get so many emails every day and it’s a lot of work just making sure to respond to everyone. Sometimes I’m having to say ‘no’ to people. Our calendar is full through May and I’m starting to book the Fringe Festival in September,” he said.
The West Philly community benefits from this steady flow of artists. Beyond Chahwan’s exhibit, recent months have featured the renowned performer Jungwoong Kim, who’s currently in residence offering performances and workshops for the community. There’s also the current Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate, Malaya Ulan, who has already held two performances at the studio as part of Philly Theatre Week and will lead poetry workshops twice a month on Wednesday evenings.
A Neighborhood’s Third Space
The steady presence of Studio 34 in the neighborhood has sparked conversations about the importance of third spaces.
“What I’m hearing from people, because they tell me directly, is, ‘This is really a third space that you’ve created,’ ” said Andrews.
“The first space is your home. It’s where you live. It’s where you go back to, where you sleep. It’s probably where you eat most of your meals. It’s the place you have to maintain.
“Then, your second place is your place of work. It’s the place where you have to go. Maybe you want to, maybe you don’t want to, but it’s the place where you engage in commerce, a way that you sustain what you can maintain …
“But then a third space is neither of those things. It’s the place to be that’s extra, that sustains you in another way, that can be just as important,” he explained.
Tiziou also refers to Studio 34 as a third space, and emphasized its importance.
“We need spaces for social services, and we need space for community connection. We need a place to have a meeting, to get out of the house and not be a commercial space where you have to pay money. A coffee shop is one thing, but you shouldn’t have to spend money, because then not everyone can be part of it and then we’re still doing more class divides.”
At Studio 34, a diverse group of people gathers every week and everyone has their own hope for what the space can be. Andrews invites people to keep coming back.
“I’m always trying to get more people to come. We’re called Studio 34 because we’re named for the 34 trolley,” he said. “The idea of that and the people [who] created Studio 34 was, ‘Come, take the 34 trolley down to our space.’ ”
And for some — like Tiziou — this kind of place opens to a larger invitation. “I think that every neighborhood should have a place like Studio 34,” he said. “If there’s a takeaway for your readers, it’s not ‘Let’s all go to Studio 34!’ if we live on the far side of town. It’s ‘How do we make a space like this right where we’re at?’ ”
- Studio 34 is located at 4522 Baltimore Avenue. It is usually open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Accessibility note: The entrance involves a steep flight of stairs and is not wheelchair accessible.)
- Posters from Tracy Chahwan’s exhibit are available for purchase. To inquire or place an order, email her at chahwanov@gmail.com
- On May 1, Studio 34 will launch a fundraising campaign. Details will be shared soon on their website.
