As a 2023 participant in the Miller Summer Youth Institute’s Fellowship for Undergraduates Program, I can say that one of the fantastic parts about the fellowship is how much time we spent experiencing the different parts of the city of Pittsburgh. One such day was when we went on a tour of the Mexican War Streets that included the Alphabet City bookstore in the City of Asylum, Randyland, and the Mattress Factory museum, all on the same day.
The Ever-changing Randyland
The Mexican War Streets are a historic district located in the central North Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh. We got a tour of the most important areas from one of the longtime residents. We met at Alphabet City, which is a combined bookstore and restaurant in the area. From there we started to walk toward Randyland, a house in the neighborhood that has been made into a massive art project focused on recycling materials. The house is covered in bright colors, and the backyard has multiple art projects strewn around. One such project had many signs saying welcome in the native language of every home country of people who have visited Randyland. Everywhere you look you see something different and strange; our guide noted that every time she visits there is something that has been changed or added.
The Mattress Factory: A Different kind of Museum
After Randyland we headed to the Mattress Factory, which is an art museum inside of an old mattress factory, hence the name. It was an incredibly cool museum. It is not what I normally think of as an art museum, where there are hundreds of paintings and sculptures that you walk around and look at quietly. This museum instead has these massive exhibits that stay up for years and take over entire rooms. It is not just looking at painting after painting; you instead get to walk into rooms that are themselves the exhibit and interact with the art in a way that is not typically allowed in a museum. All of the pieces show a different story and the ones by the same artists tend to be working together to create a bigger picture.
Walking through the City of Asylum
After the Mattress Factory, we began to walk the City of Asylum, and for me this was the most inspirational part of the day. The City of Asylum is home to many different types of artists who have been exiled from their country because of their art. They usually had been exiled for some sort of political reason. Walking down the street you can feel the passion the artists have for their art and you also come face to face with the power of art.
Art is powerful enough that people are exiled from their countries or have to flee because of danger; it is not just something pretty to look at. In the City of Asylum, the artists decorate the outside of their homes and you can see the passion they have. Each house is gorgeous and shows the people walking down the street the style of art of some of the people who have lived in the houses in the past, as well as makes a statement about the opinions they hold that required them to flee their home countries.
“Dialogue According to a Dictator”
My favorite piece was a poem that was painted on a garage door called “Dialogue According to a Dictator” by Rafael Cadenas, who was a Venezuelan poet from the 1930s:
Original Version: When I engage in dialogue I don’t want to be interrupted.
Second Version: I’ll engage in dialogue, but I warn you I won’t give up my position.
Third Version: In a dialogue, those who contradict me should recognize their mistake ahead of time.
Fourth Version: Having thought about it, I humbly opine that dialogue is unnecessary.
This poem is very powerful as it shows how people living within an unjust society perceive the people that are holding power over them, while explaining the damage that power causes in a very succinct but beautiful way.
Alphabet City
Once we finished walking through the City of Asylum we headed back to the Alphabet City bookstore and browsed the books. The bookstore specializes in translated works because of its proximity to the City of Asylum. Our guide noted that it has the largest number of translated books in the United States. We then had dinner at the adjoining restaurant. It was a fantastic meal and allowed us to become closer as a cohort through sharing about the experiences we had enjoyed walking through the Mexican War Streets.
Beauty Brings us Closer to God
For me, this experience showed how important art is to our understanding of each other and our understanding of God. Art allows us to come into contact with something within ourselves that is deeper than what we can normally reach. We are able to connect with those deeper parts of the people in community with us. We are able to reach into that deeper connection with the artist themselves and understand their perspective on the world which is regularly fundamentally different from our own.
I believe that beauty brings us closer to God. Art has a sense of inherent beauty because it is our way of emulating God through creation, even if the goal of the art is not to be beautiful. We become closer to God when we create and when we view the creation of others as well as when we view his own creation through the land we live upon and the people we are in community with.
by Sierra Glyer, 2023 Miller Summer Youth Institute Fellowship for Undergraduates intern