New Wheatpaste from Symone Salib: “You Can’t Tell Me What to Do with My Own Body”

“You can’t tell me what to do with my own body,” reads a new wheatpase from Philly-based artist Symone Salib located on Front street at Girard avenue in Fishtown.

Best I can tell this paste has been up at this intersection for at least a month now. A fairly rare feat for such a highly trafficked intersection, where a ton of people wait for buses transferring from the Market-Frankford Line El’s Girard stop. I mention that just as an observation: most street art at bus stops gets picked at or buffed pretty regularly. I’ve noticed this a ton over the years, and I’ve started to compare the picking to peeling at your beer label at the bar; wheatpastes at bus stops are often easily on the receiving end of some unconscious (or conscious) picking while people wait.

Symone’s wheatpaste, however, looks nearly completely untouched. Leaving me to believe that, in Philly at least, or more pointedly at this intersection at least, this message is a universally understood one. Perhaps that’s because it’s so damn obvious, but alas for political and historical reasons this message continues to need to be said. And I for one like it said here, pronounced in the public space for all to see.

See previous work from Symone Salib around Philly here!