Student artwork featured in Project Pop Up: Downtown

Talent 'pops up' in Wood Street photo project

Published: Monday, November 28, 2011

The city of Pittsburgh is flourishing with new ideas on how to improve the Downtown area, with one of those ideas involving Point Park University.

The developing project Point Park has contributed to involves emphasizing art as a way to revitalize the city.

Specifically, Point Park's Cinema and Digital Arts program and the Photography programs have each been awarded a grant and a vacant storefront to use within the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership's (PDP) Project Pop Up: Downtown, which enables the artwork of the university to be displayed as part of an initiative to improve conditions Downtown.

"I think it's really neat to add another flavor to the city," Sean McKeag, a junior photojournalism major, said in a phone interview on Tuesday. "It fuels creativity within the city. People see this and I think they'll gain some inspiration."

Located at 422 Wood St., the space offered to the photography programs premiered the parts of the developing project this past Friday during Light Up Night. The installation art includes numerous televisions placed in the display window with a DVD running on each screen of a morphing sequence of students' faces. The inspiration was taken from Michael Jackson's music video for "Black or White," which includes scenes of  similar morphing faces.

The images were shot voluntarily by McKeag, but many people were involved in the project, including staff members and other students. Both Patrick Millard and Christopher Rolinson, assistant professors of photography at Point Park, were approached to lead the project for the photography programs.

The exhibit has a maximum timeframe of a year to be displayed. It is currently running 24 hours a day and seven days a week, but Rolinson explained this might be altered following the holiday season in order to conserve energy.

Students are encouraged to get involved in the display opportunity and submit work to possibly be used in the space. Those interested in the project need to submit a one-page proposal of their anticipated project.

Rolinson deems the display a success, which had its soft opening during Light Up Night. He emphasized the benefits of a project such as Project Pop Up: Downtown can have on a city.

"There will be something that has human involvement in it," Rolinson said in a phone interview on Tuesday. "These buildings are old and empty, and this is something that until they should figure out how to make the economic revival, this is a nice placeholder that keeps the energy going."

The other storefront, located adjacent to the photography program exhibit, has been granted to the Cinema and Digital Arts program. Andrew Halasz, assistant professor of cinema and digital arts, has taken the lead on the project. The display is in the works, but it will not be premiered to the city until Dec. 31.

"As soon as it's in motion, I'm going to engage some students to help in the production of it and putting it together,"Halasz said in an interview last week in his office.

The specifics of the project are not being given away, but the display will run for six months, ending in June.

Halasz, alongside other contributors to the artwork, recognizes the many benefits of this Downtown initiative, providing light to the city and a more pleasing view of the streets during the holiday season.

Project Pop Up Pittsburgh had the first of its storefronts premiere during Light Up Night, but the others are expected to display their work on New Year's Eve. The hope of the project is to help rejuvenate the Downtown area as well as entice people to rent the spaces after the pop-up galleries have ended, leaving less abandoned buildings and more improvement to the city.

"You have a downtown [area] and especially with the economy the way it is, there are a lot of vacant storefronts so the city created this grant to give artists the opportunity to create installations in these vacant storefronts." Halasz said. "It livens up the city."