90.5 WESA: Njaimeh Njie spent three years on her public artwork “Homecoming: Hill District, USA.” This month, she completed the project’s final piece, a photo mural on the front steps of the Hill House Association’s landmark Kaufmann Center. But if a visit just hours after the installation is any indication, the work is already meeting its goal of connecting community members across time and space.
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Through her installation, the Artist Njaimeh Njie truly encapsulates the power that art has to bring together people of all backgrounds. After hearing about the history of the hill district from one of my classmates for her scavenger hunt project, I felt more connected to the background that the hill district has. Having been such an incredible hub for art and music, the hill district truly thrived until its gentrification. However, the mural painted on the steps of the Kaufman Center illustrates that people who are connected to his neighborhood are taking power into their own hands and reclaiming ownership. Especially hearing about Gerald R Parker who saw his mother on the mural, and felt such pride and joy that he had to contact all of his family members and friends so that they could also see the work. Njaimeh Njie truly made an impact on this community and its citizens, while reinstating a sense of beauty and pride into a place with such a rich history of art.
The Hill was my area for Susan’s scavenger hunt and it was an incredible and very eye-opening experience to learn about this incredible and under appreciated area. The Hill district has so much history as a cultural Mecca for the arts, for jazz and nightlife and an incredibly inclusive community when those were few and far between. But due to the rash and racist decisions of the city of Pittsburgh, the heart of the community was torn apart and around 1,300 citizens were forced out of their homes. This installation is so incredibly important to this community, informing people of the history of this area works to bring more support to reviving it. This installation reminds me of the work of Teenie Harris, a photographer who captured the candid lives of the residents of the Hill District from the height of the arts community in the 1930s through the destruction of the community in the 1960s to the aftermath in the late 1970s.
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