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| "Solidaridad." Image courtesy of Robin Alexander. |
Thanks, Robin!
Transcript follows:
CB: So I’m here with Robin Alexander, the date is February
22, 2015, as part of the River of Words Oral History project, so, thanks for
being with me, Robin.
RA: Sure.
CB: I wanted to start by asking some basic demographic
information, because one of the things I want to learn is about the diversity
of folks involved in the project.
RA: Is this video or audio?
CB: Audio. So if we could start with your full name,
address, age, marital status, race you identify with, and if you need reminding
about the various categories, I’d be happy to remind you.
RA: Okay. My name is Robin Alexander, I live at 1926
Perrysville Avenue, which is sort of up the hill from here. I am sixty-one. I
am single. And I am European-American.
CB: Okay. And how long have you lived in the North Side?
RA: About twenty-five years.
CB: And you mentioned earlier that you’ve lived in
Pittsburgh for 30 years?
RA: Yes.
CB: Do you know if your house falls within the historic
district?
RA: It does not, I live up the hill in a different
neighborhood.
CB: So I wanted to turn to the River of Words project now
and talk a bit about that. Can you tell me about how you became involved in the
project, and the experience that you had?
RA: Yeah, I’ve attended a lot of the City of Asylum events,
so at one of them someone asked if I would do this and I said ‘sure’ and then
afterwards it occurred to me that this project actually might be used as a
platform to criticize the Venezuelan government and I wasn’t interested in participating
if that had been the case, so I’d asked both the City of Asylum and the arts
funders if it would be used that way, and they said “Oh, no no no! that wasn’t
in the proposal, that’s not the intent at all” so I said “Okay,” and then of
course that it was!
CB: In what way?
RA: There were articles both in the City Paper and in the
Post Gazette and I was pretty upset, actually, so I wound up actually writing
and getting a letter to the editor published in the Post Gazette and I spoke to
people afterwards.
CB: So I’m not super familiar with the content of all of the
project I’ve been more talking to people word by word about what they picked
and what it meant to them. So do you mind telling me what parts of the project
were, to you, a critique of the Venezuelan government?
RA: Oh, that it was, there were, you know its been a long
time now so I can’t tell you exactly but in one case there was an interview
with one of the writers and in the other I think it was based on discussions
that the person who wrote the article sort of used those discussions to say
that Venezuela is a dictatorship and some other things.
CB: So kind of how the project was framed in the media?
RA: Yes. Okay, okay that’s helpful.
CB: So what word did you end up choosing?
RA: Solidaridad.
CB: That makes sense, given your work with the union
[international electrical workers].
RA: Well, it was a perfect fit given my work, and so
that—you know, I was really happy initially, and then I was really upset, and
then I was trying to decide how to think about it, how do I think about this
because I do believe that art should
be political, but I felt somewhat used because I would not have chosen to
participate—so I had to decide what to do. And so what I did is I write a
letter to the editor, I raised it with people, and it just happened that right
at that period was when Israel attacked Gaza and so there was actually a
demonstration in Oakland, I think it was the evening for the reception for the
project, and I had been planning to come [to the reception] and express my
concerns and instead I decided my time and energy were probably better spent
participating in the demonstration, so I went to that, and the organizers were
mostly young and they had created some wonderful signs. They were, sort of,
heavy, not cardboard, what do you call that stuff?
CB: Particle board?
RA: No, they were heavy paper, I guess, and they had red
hand-prints and the name and age of all of the children who had been killed in
the bombing, so I got one of those signs, and at the end of the demonstration
they said “If you are going to attend another demonstration or have another use
for the sign you can keep it, otherwise please turn it back in” and I thought
“Oh, well maybe I do have a use for the sign.” So I kept it and I took it home
and I attached it under my Solidaridad
word.
CB: What kinds of reactions or interactions did that
inspire?
RA: Actually, the only one came from my neighbors who said
“Cool.”
CB: That’s interesting. Also coming off of, on Pitt’s campus
there is the Conflict Kitchen—
RA: This was before that, actually.
CB: Yeah, but its interesting when controversy happens, and
when it doesn’t.
RA: Yes, yes.
CB: Okay, and so six months later, can you tell me about the impact that displaying this word has had in your life? Has it changed in meaning for you? Has it caused any other interactions or anecdotes that you feel comfortable sharing?
RA: No, I mean, I’ve gotten a couple of inquiries about,
“I’ve seen words sort of around in this neighborhood, why are they there?” but
beyond that no one’s really commented. I live across the street from Triangle
Tech so there are a lot of students who walk up and down my hill even though
it’s a really quiet street and not many people live on the street, so I imagine
a lot of people have actually seen it, but I haven’t had conversations with
them about it.
CB: OK Cool. So I’m going to turn to the Historic Review
Commission situation, so, are you aware of what is going on with the HRC, and
if so, do you have any thoughts about
what should be done with the words?
RA: Well, I know that there was an issue about whether the
people within the Mexican War Streets would be able to leave their words on
their homes.
CB: Do you have any opinions on whether they should. Because
the way I understand it is that they are seeking an exemption to allows the
words to stay up indefinitely.
RA: Oh, I hadn’t realized that but I certainly would support
that.
CB: Finally I want to ask about your thoughts more generally
about public art, in the North Side and in Pittsburgh, if you could speculate
on who it serves, and the general social function that it has?
RA: I think that public art is tremendously important. And
at least here in Pittsburgh my impression is that the sprout fund had been
raelly significant in helping to fund public art. There are murals throughout
the city. I’ve traveled pretty extensively and so you see public art in other
places much more than you generally do in this country. Who does it serve?
Well, to some extent I think that depends on how its funded and who does the
art, and we were talking a little bit before this interview about how in my
work I had helped facilitate the creation of several murals and it was a really
interesting experience because it was as a labor union, it was very very
difficult to get funding for that kind of art even though the artists were
fabulous and the products were really wonderful.
CB: Was it difficult to get funding because people didn’t
want to give to labor unions?
RA: Yes.
CB: So just a general anxiety about labor unions, U.S.
proclivities towards capitalism?
RA: Yes.
CB: That makes sense. So I’d like to circle back to your
earlier discussion about how you felt a little bit frustrated by the framing of
this project. Do you have any thoughts about what, maybe, should be involved in
future instantiations of this project or in general in terms of making the
process more transparent and more participatory?
RA: I’m not sure exactly what you are asking.
CB: I guess I am asking if you think there is a better way
to have gone about the process of developing this project such that the media
framing that you talked about would have been less possible. The framing you
suggest that, even though this project could be read in a number of ways, the
fact that it was prevalently pitched as a critique of the Venezuelan
government. Do you think there was a better way to have gone about it to create
a different end result?
RA: I’m not sure because I guess I think that artists should
have the right to express themselves and their views. I guess my problem is
that today in the United States I don’t think the problem is with what’s
happening in Venezuela, its with how its being presented here in the U.S. and
how our government is supporting the right-wing forces in Venezuela. And so, I
think the issue is, is that the sort of project that we would want to have
here? And, I don’t know. In a way, it wound up being sort of disguised as an
innocent community project.
CB: That’s fascinating. Is there anything else you would
like to say that I haven’t given you an opportunity to talk about?
RA: Well, in spite of all of this, I really do like the City
of Asylum, and I think they have done some really fabulous programming and I’m
going to continue to go to their events, but this has certainly made me think,
perhaps more deeply, about the role of
public art, and who makes decisions, and I guess going back to your question, I
don’t know how this project came about, or who decided to do it, or how it was
to be done, but I guess, if I had been asked beforehand I certainly would’ve
had a viewpoint to have expressed that perhaps wasn’t expressed, and I would’ve
appreciated the opportunity to have contributed that.
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