Page 14

14

Union Hill

R ory woke fuzzy-headed and dry-mouthed. Dehydrated, no doubt, from her poor choices the night before. She hauled herself out of bed and headed to the kitchen on shaky legs for a glass of water. She remembered the ad hoc art installation in her living room before she reached the hallway.

She detoured to her studio to grab her camera and ran to the living room to raise the privacy screen and fling open her French doors. Then, she raced down to the cobblestone courtyard barefoot and still wearing her pajamas. She clambered up to the rooftop deck outside the tapas restaurant and wine bar to peer into her own living room at the narrative the prints told: A story of coal miners, mothers, teenagers, widows, and business owners losing their spaces juxtaposed with developers, tourists, business owners, and newcomers taking their places. In a small irony, the exhibit included one self-portrait—Rory’s reflection in the glass of the ancient grains bakery.

She lifted her viewfinder to her eye and focused on the display, firing off several shots. Then she ran back down to the courtyard and sprinted up the stairs to her apartment. Out of breath, she grabbed her laptop and typed a statement to accompany the images:

Push/Pull: An Exhibition of Displacement

We preserve what we value. We discard what we don’t.

All along the Great Allegheny Passage, communities are being transformed. Some are being revitalized, pulling in new visitors, new residents, new businesses. Others are being left behind, withering away from neglect and lack of opportunity. And still others are being demolished, hollowed out from within as longtime residents are pushed aside to make way for a new vision of prosperity.

Portions of this now-expanded installation were originally meant to be exhibited in Pittsburgh’s Hot Metal Art Gallery. That showing has been canceled due to creative differences. I never wanted to insert myself into this narrative, but now I realize I’m in it whether I like it or not.

So I’m taking this exhibition out of the exclusive gallery space and putting it where it belongs—in plain sight, in the communities being affected, visible to everyone regardless of whether they can afford gallery admission or feel comfortable in curated art spaces.

These photographs are only the beginning. Over the coming days, I’ll be documenting more sites along the trail where people and their stories are being erased in the name of progress. These new visual histories will be posted on my website and social media pages in real time.

To see the truth, we cannot look away.

—Aurora Westin

She forwarded several of the photos from her camera to her laptop and attached the best images of the window installation, as well as copies of each of the individuals photo hanging from her ceiling, and broadcast the post across her social media channels. Then she forwarded it to her small newsletter list; Evan Jeffries; the Herald reporter who’d interviewed her; and all her professional contacts. After a moment’s hesitation, she decided not to delete Tripp and Lucas’s addresses from the email. Let them see what they’d tried to suppress.

Responses began flooding in immediately. But she didn’t pause to savor the moment. She needed to execute the rest of her plan to continue to document—and to experience, however briefly—displacement.

She would travel light, carrying only her camera and essentials. She grabbed her weatherproof messenger bag and began packing. She tossed her Nikon D850 with two lenses, extra batteries, memory cards, a small notebook, protein bars, a water bottle, a light rain jacket, a change of clothes, and basic toiletries into the bag. She almost left her phone on the charger as a statement, but she needed a way to post images as she traveled. So she grabbed it and added it to the bag along with a travel charger.

She took her wallet from her desk drawer and removed her driver’s license and three twenties, which she slipped into the messenger bag’s zippered pocket. Then she returned the wallet with the rest of her cash and all her credit cards to the drawer. To document displacement authentically, she needed to know how it felt to leave everything behind, even if only temporarily. The gesture felt theatrical, but she committed to it anyway.

She did a quick sweep of the apartment, trying to shake the feeling that she was forgetting something important. The exhibition was hanging. The statement was circulating. Her camera was packed. She had water and food. What else did she need?

The murmur of voices drifted up from the courtyard. She peered down and saw a small crowd forming, their necks craned as they gazed up at her window in the early-morning light. The rooftop deck across the square was filling with people trying to get a better view.

It was time to go. If she waited any longer, her plan to slip away unnoticed would be ruined.

She hoisted her bicycle over her shoulder and carried it down the back stairs, emerging into the alley behind Railroad Way. She mounted the seat and pedaled quickly down the hill, staying on side streets until she reached the trail access point at the other end of town, well away from the growing commotion around her impromptu exhibition.

The Great Allegheny Passage stretched out ahead of her like a ribbon, or maybe a promise.