Building Bridges was an opportunity to translate a private practice into a public work with a shared collective value. The project's directives met at the intersection of memory and placemaking; to open a larger dialogue about visions of progress and forced change in Pittsburgh's Northside neighborhoods of East Deutschtown and East Allegheny. My research developed into a series of 56 hand-cut photo collages illustrating a narrative timeline of community sourced photographs. Collage designs are comprised of photographs of the neighborhood before and after the highway construction donated by long time residents and Allegheny City Historic Gallery, coupled with contemporary photographs of development on the Northside. The storytelling and symbol-making components of the collages communicates a vision of what matters, or ought to matter, in our environments with the goal of propagating stories of local history through community engagement and adaptive public art initiatives.
Press
"Oreen Cohen: Building Bridges," By Libbie Katsev, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette July 17, 2016
http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/art-architecture/2016/07/17/Oreen-Cohen-Building-bridges/stories/201607170005
Support
Honored to be supported by The Pittsburgh Foundation and Heinz Endowments Investing in Professional Artists Program and The Sprout Fund One Northside grant