Pile, Kay Healy, Screen print and acrylic on cotton, polyester fiber fill, 2022

Kay Healy: Don't Trash a Good Thing
on display offsite at Village of Industry & Art through May 31, 2026

OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, February 26 • 5 - 7 PM
Artist tour at 6 PM
RSVP here

LOCATION AND HOURS

Village of Industry & Art
320 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
Reach out to hello@viaphl.com for gallery hours + access 

Philadelphia’s Village of Industry & Art Celebrates 150th Anniversary of 
Founding of PMSIA (later the Philadelphia Museum of Art and UArts) in its Buildings 
With Solo Exhibition from UArts Alum Artist Kay Healy, 
Presented in Partnership with Paradigm Gallery + Studio

ABOUT THE COLLECTION

This February, the Village of Industry and Art (VIA) will mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (PMSIA)—the institution that would later become the University of the Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art—by hosting an exhibition and related programming within its historic buildings.  Opening on the day of the founding of the institution, February 26, and on view through May 31, VIA will host Don’t Trash a Good Thing, an exhibition of recent works by local artist and UArts alum Kay Healy, curated by Paradigm Gallery + Studio, nodding to the lineage and vibrant reality of the creative community incubated on these grounds.

Steered by Scout, the Village of Industry and Art (VIA) occupies historic buildings at Broad and Pine originally developed by the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (PMSIA), an institution chartered in 1876 to advance industrial art and design in Philadelphia. PMSIA later gave rise to both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of the Arts, with the school retaining Hamilton Hall at 320 South Broad Street until its closure in 2024. For VIA and Scout, this history is foundational: the site has long served as a home for learning, experimentation, and creative exchange. As Philadelphia enters a period of civic transformation, VIA’s reopening reflects a commitment to stewarding this legacy while reactivating the space as a platform for new cultural production, connection, and public life.

“This exhibition is one of the first public-facing activations at VIA, and it felt important that it honor the history of the University of the Arts while looking forward,” said Lindsey Scannapieco, Managing Partner at Scout. “Partnering with Kay Healy and Sara McCorriston of Paradigm Gallery + Studio, both UArts alums and leaders in the local creative scene, on a project rooted in reuse, craft, and storytelling reflects exactly what we hope VIA can be—a connective space for artists and the broader creative community, right in the heart of the city.”

The works in Don’t Trash a Good Thing emerge directly from Kay Healy’s personal and artistic reckoning with loss, memory, and reuse—most recently shaped by the abrupt closure of the University of the Arts, where she studied, taught, and built her life in Philadelphia. Rooted in drawing, screen printing, sewing, and fabric-based construction, Healy’s practice transforms everyday and discarded objects into vessels of shared experience. Her installations recreate items described in interviews—objects from childhood homes, things lost and longed for, and artifacts tied to collective moments of crisis—offering a material language for grief, resilience, and continuity.

“The announcement of the UArts closure was shocking, enraging, and deeply sad. I’m still grieving the loss of this creative resource that enabled the transmission of skills and gave access to specialized equipment to students, educators, and the broader community,” remarked artist Kay Healy. “While working on Recycling Can, the phrase ‘Don’t trash a good thing’ stayed with me—it captures my hope that the Village of Industry & Art can rise from this moment as a place of care, reuse, and possibility, salvaging what remains to create something meaningful for the next generation.”

Central to the exhibition is a site-specific Pile, Healy’s fourth iteration of combining individually rendered fabric objects into a dense, chaotic mass. Developed during the pandemic, the Pile reflects the overwhelming sensory and emotional conditions of that time, mirroring the noise, anxiety, and compression of lived experience. Additional works—including Recycling Can, Metal Can, and a small installation of Dog Poop Bags—extend this inquiry through painstakingly crafted “trash piles,” drawing attention to cycles of consumption, disposal, and erasure. Installed within the former UArts Hamilton Hall, the exhibition also includes an interactive comment box developed in collaboration with fellow alum Monica Morris, inviting visitors with connections to UArts to contribute their own stories and memories.

“As Philadelphia enters a year marked by overlapping anniversaries, large-scale activations, and civic transformation, VIA’s reopening stands as an act of both salvage and imagination,” noted Sara McCorriston of Paradigm Gallery + Studio. “The exhibition and collaboration reflects a belief that what remains can be transformed—that loss can become a generative space for connection, creativity, and collective investment in the city’s future.”

Healy’s work will remain on view throughout the spring as VIA continues to activate the building with artists, creatives, and institutions through a growing slate of public programs and events.


PROGAMMING

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 26, 5 - 7 PM, Artist tour at 6 PM

Family Book-making Event: Saturday, March 14, 11 AM - 1 PM

Closing Artist Talk: Saturday, May 30, 12 PM

MEDIA CONTACT / ARTWORK INQUIRIES

For media inquiries, contact sara@grriffinprny.com

For artwork inquiries, contact info@paradigm-gallery.com

About Kay Healy
Kay Healy investigates themes of home, displacement, and loss through her drawn, screen printed, and stuffed fabric installations.

Healy is originally from Staten Island, NY and she received a BA from Oberlin College, and MFA from the University of the Arts. She was teaching undergraduate screen printing as a Senior Lecturer at UArts when the school was abruptly shut down. 

Healy’s projects and residencies have been supported by the Independence Foundation’s Fellowship in the Arts, the Leeway Foundation, Women’s Studio Workshop, and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists. Healy’s work is in public collections at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the West Collection, and Moore College of Art. She has had solo exhibitions at Gallery Madison Park in New York City, Gallery Septima in Tokyo, Japan, the Windgate Gallery in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and other galleries. She has participated in residencies at KKV Print Studios in Malmö, Sweden, The Cooper Union in New York City, and Moosey Gallery in Norwich, UK.  

Healy recently completed Casey’s Cases, a graphic novel series for children published by Neal Porter Books, an imprint of Holiday House. She lives and works in Philadelphia.

About Paradigm Gallery + Studio 
Paradigm Gallery + Studio® was established in 2010 by co-founders and curators Jason Chen and Sara McCorriston. The gallery exhibits meaningful, process-intensive contemporary artwork by emerging and mid-career artists from around the world. In 2022, Paradigm announced the opening of its new 5-story, 7,000 sq. ft. home, The Paradigm Arts Building, in Old City, Philadelphia. Now open to the public, the building boasts multiple floors of exhibition space, integrated in-house design and printmaking, a dedicated events floor, and art advisory offices. With this, Chen and McCorriston expanded their vision for the greater Philadelphia arts community. The gallery is at the heart of this vision, anchoring Paradigm’s overall mission of increasing access to the commercial art world, supporting artists and advancing their careers, and collaborating with like-minded partners to build a more equitable, sustainable arts economy for all. Paradigm Gallery + Studio is a proud member of the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA).

About the Village of Industry and Art
The Village of Industry & Art (VIA)  is a new creative destination on Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts—a dynamic, evolving ecosystem for artists, makers, and mission-driven organizations at the intersection of culture, craft, and civic life. Led by design and development firm  Scout, the project spans over 110,000 sqft and 1.9 acres, reactivating two iconic historic buildings —formerly Hamilton and Furness Halls of the now-defunct University of the Arts—through an adaptive reuse approach that prioritizes affordability, minimal intervention, and community-first design. Rather than wait for a grand opening moment, VIA is coming to life through early activations and collaborative occupancy, inviting a growing network of tenants to help shape its future from within.