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TalkPGH is a transparent mobile talk show that goes to all 90 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh
in order to, basically, get folks talking about what they like, what they don't like,
about their neighborhoods.
This is actually about Pittsburgh's 25 year master plan. They're doing a plan of public
art and urban design. And this is outreach to get people, oftentimes strangers, to get
them talking to each other about their neighborhoods. So as part of their outreach strategy, the
City wanted to have an artist develop a methodology that would be a little less conventional than
just asking people to show up to a community meeting. And so what we have here is, you
know, a strategy where the meeting goes goes to the City, goes to people.
And one of the things I learned was that even though most of us have never been on a talk
show, everyone miraculously knows how to behave on a talk show. So it's a really comfortable
way in which someone can tell their own story, but then that story can get reframed.
I think experimentally Pittsburgh is actually a really unique city. It's starting to build
an audience. You can do anything here. You can try and fail and try again on projects.
You don't need to have a tremendous amount of money to get something off the ground.
They're kind of platforms for participation, so the producers of content in many of these
projects that I do are actually just the public.