Together
Visit this artwork in Highland Park between the swimming pool and the lake!
Photography by Sean Carroll
About The Artwork
Together was developed through feedback and conversations with the Highland Park community and surrounding areas. The artwork is designed to serve as a playable communal platform, a place for people to listen, learn, and connect with one another around the past, present, and future of the park. It's location, adjacent to the Highland Park pool and Lake Carnegie, was highlighted by the community as an area in the park that is often used by different demographics of people participating in a variety of activities that don’t necessarily engage with one another. The piece is designed to serve as a connector not only between the physical spaces but between the people utilizing these spaces. This area of the park has a long history of social connection and divide with it being one of the first integrated pools in Pittsburgh and one of the most diversely used parks in the city. The artwork becomes a multifunctional landmark that utilizes different open-ended play methodologies to break down social barriers and begin to connect people with each other and the park itself. It becomes not just a visual piece but a functional additive component for the park, providing a way of discovery and exploration as well as a destination.
About The Artist
The Urban Conga
The Urban Conga is a multidisciplinary design studio based in Brooklyn, NY. They are made up of a diverse group of creatives focused on sparking community activity and social interaction through open-ended play. They achieve this by working with communities to create inclusive, engaging, and site-specific work that sparks creativity, exploration, and free-choice learning within the built environmentLearn more about The Urban Conga here.
Location
Following Lake Drive as it loops around Highland Park, you will see this artwork on the eastern side of the loop, directly between Carnegie Lake and the Highland Park Swimming Pool.
Concept Renderings
The Storyteller
At each Art in Parks location, local storytellers created works to document and expand the narrative of the artists.
In Highland Park, writer and cultural historian Alyssa Velazquez was inspired by The Urban Conga's interactive designs and open-ended play methodology to create The Highland Park Zine. Learn more about the artists who created work for this park, the Art in Parks program, and the surrounding communities past and present through this interactive work below!
Flip through The Highland Park Zine by Alyssa Velazquez below or at this link, and experience the work of the other Art in Parks storytellers here.
This project received a RADical ImPAct Grant from the Allegheny Regional Asset District (RAD).
