Events

In February, the City of Pittsburgh will celebrate Black History Month by showcasing the life and works of American playwright and Pittsburgh native son August Wilson (1945 – 2005), who won acclaim from literary and theater critics for his plays that portray the African American experience in the twentieth century.

Working in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Library System – which has acquired Wilson’s archive – the City of Pittsburgh Office of Special Events will present “Highlights from the August Wilson Archive” to spotlight Wilson’s life.

A monthlong display in the City-County Building’s grand lobby will feature a variety of photographs, playbills, handwritten notes, play materials, other memorabilia and an interactive activity.  Online content from February 1 - 28 will feature a series of interviews with individuals who knew the playwright personally and professionally, photographs, and highlights of memorabilia on display downtown.

"August Wilson and his plays have shaped the way the world has learned about Black life in our city," said Mayor Ed Gainey. "I am proud and honored that this Black History Month we will be hosting the 'August Wilson Archive' at City Hall. This exhibit will help us celebrate his life and legacy as we share how his plays helped create a deeper understanding of what it meant to be Black in Pittsburgh."

The “Highlights from the August Wilson Archive” exhibit will celebrate the life of one of the most important voices in modern theater.  The Pittsburgh native is best known for his American Century Cycle, a collection of 10 plays, 9 of which are set in his hometown, that span across decades.

The public is invited to attend the exhibit’s opening reception on Monday, February 6, 2023, at 6 p.m. in the City-County Building’s grand lobby.  Festivities will include entertainment, refreshments, and remarks by Mayor Gainey, the Director of the University Library System, the Outreach and Engagement Curator of the August Wilson Collection, the Taylor Allderdice High School student who created the exhibit, and individuals who knew Wilson personally and professionally.

"We are excited to partner with the City of Pittsburgh to bring highlights from the August Wilson Archive, a unique collection with deep roots in Pittsburgh, to exhibit downtown as we celebrate Wilson for this year’s Black History Month,” said Kornelia Tancheva, Hillman University Librarian and Director of the University Library System.

The City of Pittsburgh’s celebration of Black History Month is presented by the Office of Special Events in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Library System, and is sponsored by AARP Pennsylvania, 100.1 & AM 1020 KDKA NewsRadio and WAMO 107.3.

Additional information about the 2023 City of Pittsburgh Black History Month celebration is available at www.pittsburghpa.gov/events and @PghEventsOffice on Twitter.

ABOUT THE AUGUST WILSON ARCHIVE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
www.augustwilson.library.pitt.edu

Please join the University of Pittsburgh Library System as we celebrate the opening of the August Wilson Archive with a weeklong series of events, culminating in a grand opening celebration in Hillman Library on Friday, March 3.  To learn more, please visit www.augustwilson.library.pitt.edu

Register Now for Our Winter/Spring 2023 Complimentary Events.

Join us for an engaging and enlightening speaker series offering opportunities for self-reflection about our roles in building a just and merciful world that values all.

All events are held on the main campus:

Carlow University│3333 Fifth Avenue│Pittsburgh, PA 15213

JENNIFER PINCKNEY

Massacre Survivor, Emanuel AME Church, June 17, 2015

Video Screening of Documentary of the Racial Killings of Members of Mother Emanuel AME Church

Presented by Stop the Violence and The Social Justice Institutes at Carlow University

Sat., February 4, 2023, 2-5 PM

Gailliot Center, University Commons, 5th Floor

Free event. Registration required by February 3rd.

https://bit.ly/carlowfeb4

FATHER GREGORY BOYLE

Founder & CEO of Homeboy Industries

Father Greg Boyle and the Community of Homeboy Industries 

Presented by The Center for Mercy Heritage and Service

Presented by The Mercy Heritage & Services at Carlow University

Tues., February 7, 2023, 7-8 PM

Rosemary Heyl Theatre, Antonian Building

Free event. Registration required by February 1st.

https://bit.ly/carlowfeb23

CORNEL WEST

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary

A Night With Cornel West, More than a Moment

Presented by The Social Justice Institutes at Carlow University & Vibrant Pittsburgh

Wed., February 15, 2023, at 7-9 PM

Rosemary Heyl Theatre, Antonian Building

Free event. Registration required by February 11th.  

https://bit.ly/cornelatcarlow

For More Information click here

In this exciting and inspiring reading, we welcome one of the most important poetic voices of our time, Mahogany L. Browne, to share her highly anticipated collection, Chrome Valley. The work is at once a luminous hymn and a battle cry. Simultaneously spanning the course of her own life while embodying centuries of virulent history, this collection pays solemn tribute to the women who came before her. With her dynamic mastery of language, Mahogany is able to seamlessly move through effervescent yet cutting poems capturing the peculiar joys and pangs of Black girlhood, to rhythmic and haunting explorations of the inherent grief of motherhood. Transcendent and grounded, funny and furious, Chrome Valley is a declaration and celebration of black womanhood in all its brilliant facets.

Curator Notes: “I’ve been a fan of Mahogany L. Browne’s poetry for years, especially her young adult novels-in-verse, Vinyl Moon and Chlorine Sky. I’m looking forward to celebrating her return to City of Asylum. In her newest poetry collection, Chrome Valley, she explores grief, legacy, girlhood, womanhood, and what it’s like to be a Black woman in America.” —Kelsey Ford, Director of Programs at City of Asylum

The reading is followed by a moderated conversation, audience Q&A, and book signing. You can purchase your own copy of Chrome Valley at City of Asylum Bookstore. 

About the Author:

Mahogany L. Browne (she/her) is a writer, organizer, vocalist, performance poet, educator, and author of poetry and fiction. In addition to Chrome Valley, her works include poetry collections I Remember Death By Its Proximity to What I Love, Kissing Caskets, and the NAACP-nominated chapbook Redbone, as well as several notable YA works. She has a MFA in Writing and Activism from Pratt Institute, where she founded the Women Writers of Color Reading Room and became the director of the Black Lives Matter program. Mahogany is one of the founders of the socially active literary collective #BlackPoetsSpeakOut (with Amanda Johnston, Jonterri Gadson, Jericho Brown, and Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe), created out of urgency and as a response to the non-indictment of Mike Brown’s murderer. She is also the Poetry Coordinator at St. Francis College’s MFA Program, founder of Woke Baby Book Fair, and the first-ever poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center. Mahogany currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

February 20 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm EST

Free In-Person Tickets

Free Livestream Tickets

MWINS Consulting presents the Western Pennsylvania Black Homeownership Forum on Saturday, February 4th at 10:00 AM at Petra International Ministries in East Hills. The purpose of this event is to inform, educate and strategize.

“The homeownership rate among Black Americans is lower than other minority groups,” Monique Winston, President of WMINS Consulting and real estate title executive. “Unfortunately, decades after the passing of the Fair Housing Act, black families continue to struggle with homeownership. Moreover, the gap between black families and white families is larger than it was over 80 years ago when the Federal Housing Administration was created. This necessitates the need for direct, intentional, and targeted intervention.”

This in-person forum will open with a lively networking session with music, a 360-photo booth and more. Continental breakfast and lunch will be served.

 Attendees will:

· Learn the “WHY” behind homeownership. There will be a special presentation of the most recent State of Housing in Black America Report. 

· Receive valuable information about preparing for the homeownership journey, along with the tools and techniques to ensure sustainable homeownership.

· Establish their next steps toward the journey of homeownership

According to the Prosperity Now Scorecard, the homeownership rate for Allegheny County is 33.2% for blacks compared to 70.9% for whites. Blacks lag behind all dominant ethnic groups.

This event is in partnership with Petra International Ministries and the Pittsburgh Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. Mrs. Winston is a graduate of Duquesne University School of Law and an active Member of the Greater Cleveland Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.

Interested parties can register online through an Eventbrite link. 

The Black Homeownership Forum is free and open to the public but registration is required. Although there will not be any strict COVID safety policies in place, masks are encouraged. 

Petra International Ministries is located at 235 Eastgate Drive in the East Hills section of Pittsburgh. First National Bank is the Platinum Sponsor for this event.

Contact info@mwinsconsulting.com for more information. 

 Contemporary Craft (CC) is pleased to announce a new residency with artist and designer Tereneh Idia, exploring the material culture of Black Pittsburgh – past, present and future. The residency is made possible through a generous $35,000 Creative Development Awards grant from The Heinz Endowments, with additional support from Dawn and Chris Fleischner. The residency is set to begin in April 2022.

During this nine-month residency, titled C3, Idia will examine the history of cloth, culture, and community of Black Pittsburgh to create a new body of work that draws upon underknown cultural knowledge and traditions of the people with African ancestry and the African diaspora in western Pennsylvania. 

“Black Pittsburgh’s history and material culture is woven throughout this region’s history even before Pittsburgh became Pittsburgh. I am so excited to explore the Cloth, Culture and Community with Contemporary Craft as artist in residence in 2022,” said Idia. “Contemporary Craft is the perfect partner because of its dedication to craft, commitment to supporting artists, expanding education of craftsmanship and skills in the region and understanding that community is created and celebrated through the arts.”

C3 will provide resources for artistic development through opportunities to learn new textile skills; provide space to experiment, create and display new techniques; conduct research on material culture of Black Pittsburgh that fills gaps in the regional knowledge base; uncover creative expression within Pittsburgh’s Black community related to garments and adornment; and share artistic products with multicultural audiences in hopes of strengthening our region’s collective self-identity. C3 will also prompt a discussion around cloth and community in the field of craft beyond Pittsburgh, as CC connects Idia with craft institutions across the country.

"It is an honor to have the opportunity to be included in Tereneh’s work, as she researches and explores creative expression through textiles and adornment," said CC Executive Director Rachel Saul Rearick. "We look forward to being able to draw connections between her practice and the work that we do at Contemporary Craft; while learning more about the history and culture of the Black community in Pittsburgh.”

The project will consist of four interwoven and overlapping phases: explore, research, create and share. At the end of the residency, the information and documentation collected during the Explore and Research phases will be made available online, and the new designs will be presented in an exhibition at Contemporary Craft’s BNY Mellon Satellite Gallery. 

About Tereneh Idia

C3 is consistent with Idia’s artistic interests, having conducted collaborative endeavors throughout her career. Her primary artistic enterprise, IdiaDega, is a global eco-design collaboration of Maasai, Oneida and African-American women artisans; centering the design innovation of people who are often appropriated but never duplicated, to create new design languages and build multicultural creative communities. 

Idia speaks and conducts workshops on issues of sustainability, fashion, adornment, appropriation, global design and creativity highlights of her work including: Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History; Africa Energy Forum - Copenhagen, Denmark; Yale-National University of Singapore; The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, FiberArts Guild; and the Society of Contemporary Crafts.

About The Heinz Endowments

The Heinz Endowments is devoted to the mission of helping our region prosper as a vibrant center of creativity, learning, and social, economic and environmental sustainability. Core to our work is the vision of a just community where all are included and where everyone who calls southwestern Pennsylvania home has a real and meaningful opportunity to thrive.

 About Contemporary Craft

Celebrating its 50th anniversary year in 2021/2022, Contemporary Craft presents contemporary art in craft media by regional, national, and international artists. Contemporary Craft offers cutting edge exhibitions focusing on multicultural diversity and contemporary art, as well as a range of artist-led studio workshops, community engagement programs, and a store. Located at 5645 Butler Street in the Upper Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA, Contemporary Craft’s exhibition and Drop-In Studio art activity are always free to the public. For more information, visit www.contemporarycraft.org.   

 Silver Eye Center for Photography is pleased to announce our upcoming exhibitions, Still Standing by Hannah Price and Gentle Landing by Zeal Eva. Gentle Landing is part of Silver Eye's Pittsburgh Presents series, a year-round project highlighting the work of extraordinary artists and image-makers working in our community.

Hannah  Price: Still Standing

Silver Eye is honored to present these photographs by Hannah Price,  made while an African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund Fellow with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Whether honoring Black cultural figures or supporting Black centers of creativity, the Trust brings attention to the importance of historical  memory and cultural continuity.

Price  documented the restoration of historic buildings in the Hill District and Homewood neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. These included the August Wilson House, the National Negro Opera Company House, and the New Granada Theater. Still Standing includes Price’s portraits of people living in the communities around these landmarks today. These portraits reflect that these structures exist in thriving communities whose heritage inspires the creative life of the Hill District and Homewood now and in  the future. 

From the exhibition  text: Photography  and historical preservation are interventions that appear to interrupt and stop the action of time. By drawing attention to a particular moment–often before a transformation takes place–these interventions ask us to consider our relationships with the past.  How does the legacy of the past inspire the future? How have time and history shaped how we understand ourselves?   

Zeal  Eva: Gentle Landing

Gentle  Landing is a small step in the journey towards self-actualization for the artist  Zeal Eva, who has found herself these past five years in a search for home, while actively finding moments of pause, peace, and humanity in the everyday and the “what’s next?”

The artist writes:  "A gentle transition of moments experienced, a celebration of ones passed and those left to come. The unexpected turn of an important relation backs turned toward you as you set off, yet again, into the sunset, into spaces both familiar and unknown. To the  journey of uncovering small pieces of yourself while kneading in new threads to make you whole. It is an ongoing practice to create what is imagined into the tangible. While landing, gently into this present time."

These exhibitions  will be on view at Silver Eye from December 2nd, 2022 through February 10th, 2023. For  a full explanation of our visiting policies, visit our website.

Participating  Artists

Hannah  Price is a photographic artist and filmmaker primarily interested in documenting  relationships, race politics, and social perception and misperception. Raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, Price is internationally known for her project City of Brotherly Love (2009-2012), a series of photographs of the men who catcalled her on the streets of Philadelphia. In 2014, Price graduated from the Yale School of Art MFA Photography program, receiving the Richard Benson Prize for excellence in photography. Over the past  eight years, Price's photos have been displayed in several cities across the United States, with a few residing in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Zeal  Eva is a visual storyteller who celebrates Black experience through her artworks  that bring to life a nostalgic feeling of home. Originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Zeal Eva’s work is deeply rooted in personal history and the histories of the communities in which she navigates in. Through photography, painting, illustration, sculpture,  and curation, she explores the intersections of the natural world and the built environment to highlight shared experiences, documents the present, and look toward the future.

Related  Programming

Still  Standing + Gentle Landing Opening  

Friday  December 2nd, 2022, 6pm-9pm

Meet  the artists and take a first look at new exhibitions Still  Standing and Gentle Landing during Unblurred on Penn Avenue.

Still  Standing + Gentle Landing Brunch Reception and 

Artist-led  exhibition tour

Saturday  December 3rd, 2022, 11am-12pm

Join  Silver Eye Center for Photography and artists Hannah Price and Zeal Eva for an artist-led tour of new exhibitions Still Standing and Gentle Landing. 

 www.silvereye.org 

 Gavin Benjamin, former resident artist at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, returns to the Museum for an exhibition featuring photographic portraits of local community members taken during his residency. Gavin Benjamin: Break Down and Let It All Out, the inaugural project of the Museum’s new contemporary series to be featured in its historic paneled rooms, will be on view from October 16, 2022 through February 5, 2023. Through this exhibition, Benjamin works to acknowledge the past while also visualizing possibilities for the present and gesturing to a more equitable future.

“It is my hope that this exhibition will result in deeper conversations surrounding the arts in Greensburg and the longstanding influence of the African American community within the museum setting. I wanted to reframe the idea of a residency as an all-encompassing endeavor that reaches far into the corners of the museum, its collection, and the Greensburg community,” stated Benjamin.

To create the body of work featured in Break Down and Let It All Out, Benjamin photographed over 60 local community members. The exhibition then combines the installation of a domestic space owned by a fictional Black family for nearly 250 years, which includes works of fine and decorative art from the Museum’s permanent collection, with these psychologically rich portraits.

“Museums are nothing without their audiences, and this exhibition makes that explicit. It will be wonderful to see the reactions of the community members featured in Gavin’s portraits as they view this installation in the Museum’s beautiful paneled room spaces for the first time,” indicated Chief Curator Jeremiah William McCarthy.

“I am delighted that we are able to help fulfill the vision Gavin had for the culmination of his residency here at The Westmoreland with the presentation of Gavin Benjamin: Break Down and Let It All Out. Gavin’s work has had a lasting positive impact within our Museum, and we are thrilled to invite everyone into this conversation about art, culture, and our place in history,” commented Interim Director/CEO and Chief Operating Officer Suzanne Wright.

Benjamin is one of five artists to participate in The Westmoreland’s Artist-in-Residency Program presented in partnership with BOOM Concepts and made possible by generous support from The Pittsburgh Foundation and The New Sun Rising Arts | Equity | Reimagined program. The residency program emphasizes the Museum’s commitment to engaging and supporting Black and marginalized artists, to promoting equity in the arts, and to sharing compelling and meaningful cultural experiences with the regional community. Benjamin’s residency occurred from March through July of 2021.

As part of the presentation of Break Down and Let It All Out, Benjamin will take part in an In Conversation public program at the Museum on Wednesday, October 19 from 6-8pm where he will discuss his exhibition with McCarthy. After the discussion, attendees will have the opportunity to view the exhibition. This program is free with advance registration recommended. To register, one may visit thewestmoreland.org/calendar.

Gavin Benjamin: Break Down and Let It All Out is generously supported by The Fine Foundation.

About Gavin Benjamin:
Benjamin makes work that reimagines the genre and traditions of portraiture. Often combining original analog photography and appropriated images with collage, paint and varnish, he creates rich works, which he says, “call back to baroque traditions, but use elements of current culture to provoke, critique and explore.” Benjamin’s work investigates the intersection of culture, media, politics, fashion, and design, addressing questions that confront a man of color in America today. He states that, “My work reflects everything that I’m thinking – it includes everything that I love and everything that I’m challenged by. It’s honest and curious and bright and thoughtful. And sometimes a little dark. It’s all of the things that made me want to be a professional artist in the first place.”

Benjamin was born in Guyana, South America and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. During this time, he interned with legendary portrait photographer Arnold Newman. After school, he worked at agencies representing commercial and advertising photographers, prop stylists, and hair and makeup artists, and then went on to work as a freelance production coordinator/photo editor with stints at Kenneth Cole Productions, Esquire, Hachette Filipacchi Media, and Good Housekeeping.

His work has appeared at the Slick Paris, Sotheby’s NY, Architectural Digest Home Design Show, Art Hampton, Affordable Art Fair, Scope Miami, Palm Beach Modern, Context Miami, Context NY, Art Silicon Valley, and the LA Art Fair.

For more information on Benjamin, please visit his website gavinbenjamin.com.

Measurement Rules a new exhibit at Children's Museum Opens September 15th.  Explore creative ways to measure yourself and objects in this interactive exhibit. How many chickens do you weigh? How tall are you in apples or inches or pennies? Can you use your foot as a ruler? Explore nonstandard ways to measure yourself and objects using items such as balancing scales, odometers, calipers, 3-D imaging and counting “Mississippis.”

Hands-on components:

• Measure yourself in apples or pennies
• Get walking and add to the total yards we’ll calculate visitors walked on our exhibit treadmill
• Tinker with instruments such as calipers, height gauges and go/no-go gauges to explore ways to measure an ordinary wooden ball. Toss the balls down the chutes to test your finding
• How good is your internal clock? Count to five Mississippi and see how close you come to five actual seconds
• Find out how many chickens you weigh at the Chicken Scale!
• Extend a Giant Tape Measure and measure the equally giant fish on our wall mural
• Build your own ball ramp and modify it to make it faster or slower
• See yourself built in cubic-inch blocks as you stand in front of a special screen
• Explore volume at an open-ended Bead Table
• Balance objects and standard weights on a large balance scale

Learn More: https://pittsburghkids.org/exhibit/measurement-rules