I Wish to Say by Artist Sheryl Oring

I Wish to Say invites the public to share their thoughts, feelings, and suggestions with President Trump on Friday, April 28 from 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. and Saturday, April 29 from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. These two dates coincide with the 99th and 100th days of President Trump’s administration. Ten typists will set up a public office in Market Square to invite Pittsburghers to dictate messages to the president, sharing some of these messages publicly in Market Square.

Oring has presented I Wish to Say more than 80 times around the country since 2004. The project grew out of her concern that not enough American voices were being heard in regards to the current state-of-affairs. To date, more than 3,200 postcards have been sent to the White House as part of this project, including many that were shared in her 2016 book Activating Democracy: The I Wish to Say Project.

At each performance, Oring and her typists dress as secretaries from the 1960s and use vintage manual typewriters. Carbon paper is used to make two copies of dictations: one copy will be sent to the White House, while the other is kept for Oring’s ever-growing archive of America’s commentary. Each message is hand-stamped with the date and notices like “urgent” or “past due.”  The collected dictations are a powerful and thoughtful antidote to today’s hurried communications. A video of a previous performance may be viewed here.