People We Love Art Installation

People We Love is by Kit Monkman and is having its North American debut in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Installation dates: April 9 - June 5, 2022

The gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday from 12-8pm and Sundays from 1-5pm. Admission is free and open to all to enjoy. The installation is visible through the gallery windows 24 hours a day.

Originally commissioned by Mediale, an international arts agency working with artists at the cutting edge of digital technologies, the artwork had its premiere at York Minster in the UK, on October 14. Now opening in Pittsburgh on April 8, and running through June 5, 2022, the work features seven floor mounted high-definition screens, all exceptionally lighted to show a video-portrait of a different face. Each person shown is gazing at a picture of someone they love. A picture you never get to see. It’s simultaneously compelling, revealing, and emotional.

Creating the work required extensive public engagement, with willing Pittsburgh-based participants quite literally becoming component pieces of the displayed artwork.

The process required each person be quietly filmed gazing at a digital or physical photo of a person they love while listening to a guided meditation. The experience of doing so created some very personal journey’s that were then tastefully captured for inclusion in the video-portrait ‘gallery’.

Beautiful, moving and timely, People We Love explores the unique invisible transaction between each person and their loved one, as well as that of the viewer of the installation, with all sharing in that one emotion that inextricably bonds us together.

Artist and creator of the work, Kit Monkman, expressed his excitement about the launch. “I’m thrilled to be bringing People We Love to Pittsburgh. This first US edition of the work features well over one hundred video portraits captured from local participants. I’ve been incredibly moved by the silent stories that this very diverse collection of faces suggest. In each case, every twitch and blink tell us a unique story. Unique but universal.”