Local artists look to the future with 'Pittsburgh Tomorrow: A City on the Rise'
Centre Daily Times - Those who want to get a glimpse of Pittsburgh's bright future need to simply look at its artists.
Nineteen local luminaries have joined forces to collaborate on "Pittsburgh Tomorrow: A City on the Rise," a multimedia project that will be celebrated at Rockwell Park in Point Breeze North on Friday.
The nonprofit Pittsburgh Tomorrow was started by longtime journalist Doug Heuck, who spent decades compiling data on the state of Pittsburgh in comparison to other cities. He was worried that the city wasn't stacking up.
"I started Pittsburgh Tomorrow with the belief that we have the component ingredients and puzzle pieces to become literally the best place to live in the country," Heuck told TribLive.
The nonprofit seeks to improve Pittsburgh's future by promoting the city, welcoming newcomers and engaging the community. During the Pittsburgh Homecoming event Friday through Sunday, former-Pittsburghers who have moved out of town and locals will be welcomed to experience the city's culture and people.
"Pittsburgh Tomorrow: A City on the Rise" is the splashy introduction to the weekend.
The weekend events come on the heels of the StartUP PGH conference, which runs through Friday and brings together 15 partner organizations to celebrate the city's startup, technology, AI, robotics and life sciences communities.
"The idea of the Homecoming, aside from literally attracting so-called 'boomerangers' and others who might consider this to be their home in the future, was to really add this second component piece to this conference, and that is to trumpet and take the bushel basket off of the tremendous arts and culture and quality of life that we have here," Heuck said.
The "Pittsburgh Tomorrow" art project pulls together creatives from the worlds of visual art, music and dance from around the Pittsburgh area. They include Brendan Burch, Johannes DeYoung, Attack Theatre and DJ pvkvsv.
"I think everyone wanted to pitch in and create something really, really special for this, for the first big week. There's been a tremendous spirit," Heuck said.
The Friday showcase of the collaborative art project will include futuristic visual art installations, music and movement.
Attack Theatre is using the city as inspiration for its dance and movement piece of the project.
"The folks from Pittsburgh Tomorrow really came to us with this beautiful idea of a project," said Peter Kope, founding artistic director of Attack Theatre. "This was truly an opportunity to showcase the arts and the vibrancy of that scene as a part of the totality and the fabric of what makes Pittsburgh."
Part of Attack Theatre's performance is in concert with video art from Johannes DeYoung and his team.
"We wanted to make something that really blended the two together," Kope said.
"Doug Heuck introduced me to Pittsburgh Tomorrow after learning about my work at Carnegie Mellon and my involvement with the newly formed Pennsylvania Expanded Animation Alliance," DeYoung said. "What immediately interested me was the idea of thinking about Pittsburgh not simply as a place where artists work, but as a place that actively generates new forms of cultural and creative exchange. Doug and I share that curiosity about the city, and this project grew out of those conversations."
DeYoung wanted the larger project to include different perspectives that force the viewer to look at aspects of daily life with fresh eyes - things that are "strange, fragile, funny or easily overlooked."
"The artists work across animation, video, photography and interactive media, and their approaches are quite different. What connects them for me is a kind of attentiveness. They take familiar things - bodies, landscapes, objects, everyday gestures - and make them unfamiliar enough that we begin to see them again," he said.
Heuck is looking forward to Pittsburgh Tomorrow showing off what the city has to offer to expats and newcomers alike through this project.
"I can't wait to see it," he said.
"Pittsburgh Tomorrow: A City on the Rise" will be held at Rockwell Park in Point Breeze North from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday. To learn more, visit pittsburghtomorrow.org.