International Public Art Installation “People We Love” Seeks Participants Ahead of North American Debut

Public art in Downtown continues to provide opportunities to showcase exceptional talent and creative thinking, and community members have an opportunity to engage directly with a new international art project starting this month.

People We Love, which will be shown in York Minster starting on October 14 before coming to Downtown Pittsburgh in early 2022, features five floor-mounted high-definition screens, 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. The installation was originally commissioned by York Mediale, an international media arts charity that celebrates York as the UK’s first and only UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts.

Beautiful, moving, and timely, People We Love explores the invisible transaction between a person and a piece of art and that one emotion that bonds us all.

“People We Love is a project that tries to summon up that spirit of questioning and imagining,” said artist and creator, Kit Monkman. “It is built around one central premise; we know that all of its subjects are looking at someone they love(d), but it never reveals the specifics. We can only guess what joy or tragedy that wistful smile points to. It asks us to imagine. And in the act of imagining the ‘art’ is made. It’s a shared transaction, prompted by the subjects, made by the viewer.”

Monkman is the leader of KMA, a creative collective whose work seeks to ask complex and prescient questions about the 21st century aesthetic; examining the increasingly porous relationship between
art and its audience–one in which the viewer may be the performer, and jointly own the generated aesthetic. KMA’s work has been internationally recognized for transforming numerous public spaces,
from London’s Trafalgar Square to Shanghai’s Bund, creating impromptu theatrical arenas in which the distinction between performer and audience is blurred.

“People We Love extends the PDP’s legacy of supporting public art and delivers a unique experience to connect, something we have all missed over the last 19 months,” said Jeremy Waldrup, President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. “KMA has created a timely work that will make a great addition to the street life in Downtown Pittsburgh.”

“This project uses a simple gesture – looking at a picture of someone you love – to explore empathy, curiosity, and imagination,” said project producer, Renee Piechocki.

The creation of People We Love requires public engagement, with willing participants quite literally becoming a part of the artwork. Each person is quietly filmed gazing at a digital or physical photo of a person they love while listening to a guided meditation. They experience a personal journey with a photo of a loved one that is tastefully captured for later inclusion in the video-portrait gallery.

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How You Can Get Involved

We’re extending an open invitation to all those interested in becoming an integral part of this unique international project. A video studio at One Oxford Centre, at the corner of Smithfield St. and Fourth Ave., has been created to capture each participants’ experience.

Sign-ups are available now for video sessions from October 2, 2021 through late November, with complete details also available on the project website. People can also request a participation date and time via email.

Individuals must be fully vaccinated to participate, and only 5 people at one time are allowed at the venue.

This international collaboration with the artist and York Minster provides Pittsburgh a once-in-a-lifetime chance to become part of a contemporary work that will be shown at a special November 5 event in the UK and again, several months later, at the Downtown Pittsburgh installation happening in early 2022.

Learn more.