Seen/Unseen
Gigi Guida · 2026 · cities · people · powerLook around. What do you see? Look again. What stories are hidden in plain sight?
Join us as we surface the power at work around us and within us, all the time. As we learn to read its myths loud in our landscapes and in our language, we see our society and ourselves being made. Inside power’s own construction process, can we begin to see its undoing?
Walk with Philadelphian Gigi Guida on a noticing tour of Philadelphia’s iconic City Hall, where we look again and look within. Each episode has a touchstone at City Hall, like the enormous statue of a Quaker atop its clocktower, the public park that acts as its front patio, a plaque for a policeman on its walls, and the subway station that rumbles beneath it.
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From there, we go everywhere. To other American cities like Detroit, to social theory, to conversations with strangers and fights at the dinner table. We travel back in time, to 1681, to 1874, to the 1940s, 1960s, to 2020, to ancient commons, to childhood memories from a 2000s kid. Along the way, we meet three city-dweller storytellers who ask us to pay attention - and see as they do.
When you truly look at yourself and your city - can you see new worlds already alive in this one? Can you see the seeds to something new?
This series began as a senior thesis at the University of Michigan, and is supported by The University of Michigan Arts Initiative.
We begin in the courtyard of Philly’s City Hall, on top of a compass that somebody might tell you, depending on who you ask, is the center of the city. I’ve brought you to City Hall, because I think there’s a lot to see here.
1hr 16min
On this episode, the making invisible of a Quaker who stands atop Philadelphia. Join us as we notice the monuments that mold/sculpt/cast our consciousness.
1hr 7min
Our public parks are made of money. But what if they weren’t? On this episode, the myth of public and lessons from the commons.
On this episode, three myths: ownership, safety, and emptiness, and how, if we’re not careful, our own stories feed capitalism and colonialism.
1hr 20min
Beneath City Hall, we find the hiding work of the highway. And little moments on public buses that, maybe, could transform the world as we know it.
5 episodes, 5 hrs 8 minutes
© Gigi Guida