About Mamie & Weaver’s ULTRA

Mamie and Weaver’s Ultra is a monument to the legacy of Mamie & John Weaver specializing in the presentation of time-based media, performance, and community engagement in West Philly.

It stands on the corner of Black and Beautiful, atop “Philadelphia’s Black Bottom”, celebrating the sights, sounds, energy, and pageantry of life around the way. The space engages in the preservation of a family’s legacy, a community’s history, and a neighborhood’s radical optimism.

Inspired by artist and University of Pennsylvania professor Ken Lum’s, “Public Art Seminar” in 2013, Mamie & Weaver’s Ultra was conceived by Charles Hall as a monument to honor the work of his late grandparents, and the neighborhood of Belmont.

In the 50’s and 60’s, Mamie and Weaver owned and operated a store-front, dry cleaners called Ultra. She also worked with the City of Philadelphia Anti-Poverty Program, was a founder of Belmont Improvement Association, and a member of the Mountain Olive Baptist Church. Weaver worked for Atlantic Petroleum/Arco, also known as Sunoco. He was a loving gardener, incredible cook, king of the barbeque, and super fan of South Carolina State’s, Marion Motley. They were entrepreneurs, organizers, leaders and activists who could often be found supporting friends and neighbors on Lancaster Avenue.

The space was designed to contribute to the spirit of the block by creating an artistic platform capable of hosting, generating, and participating in new conversations.

In 2018, For Freedoms 50 State Initiative put the gallery on the map. As a partner in their campaign, we moderated a town hall meeting, curated an exhibition, crowd sourced a billboard, staged a performance, and designed yard signs to inspire civic engagement.

During election years, Mamie & Weaver’s Ultra continues to host public facing, time based media exhibitions, created by and for a community of color, questioning ideas of power, nation, community, and self in the face of gentrification.

Ray Mendez