Steel City Squash

While educational nonprofit Steel City Squash (SCS) constructed their new facilities, they worked closely with the neighborhood and community members to gather input and cultivate reciprocal relationships. When we came onboard to create a public art intervention on the building, we continued to build those relationships with neighbors and project stakeholders.

TASC led a local open call for artwork in the fall of 2023, bringing in submissions from artists around the area. A selection committee—including stakeholders from the organization, the architecture firm, and a neighborhood group—helped narrow down the pool to three artists, who were invited to participate in a paid design process. These three artists, PBJ Customs, Industrial Arts Workshop, and Alecia Dawn Young, went on to speak directly with members of both SCS and the neighborhood communities during an interactive stakeholder workshop. Over the following weeks, the artists worked with feedback from the selection committee and members of the public to create design proposals for public artworks in a variety of materials. 

Artist Alecia Dawn Young was ultimately selected as the final artist for this project. Her mixed media mural, titled Rooted Momentum, considers community centers as a fertile space for growth, creativity, and liberatory progress. In this piece, communal archive, nature, industry, and culture are centered throughout a bright ceramic tile and painted composition. Featuring over one thousand hand made tiles, the piece expands over 1,600 square feet of the community center’s exterior and interior walls.

Photos by Hannah Colen

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LOCATION
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

INDUSTRY
Educational Non-Profit

SERVICES
Curation, Project Management, Community Engagement, Documentation

TIME FRAME
13 months

ARTWORK
Total Concepts Commissioned: 3

Total Artworks Commissioned: 1