About

    In 2016, The Larimer Consensus Group and artist John Peña began working to create a community-engaged public art project in the Larimer neighborhood in Pittsburgh, PA. Peña spent the first phase of the project interviewing and recording personal stories from long-term residents. He began with one-on-one interviews where each participant was paid $25 for a thirty-minute interview. Through the interviews, Peña began working primarily with senior residents of Larimer to build an informal history of the neighborhood collectively.

The Larimer Senior Group at the reception for “Larimer Stories” in 2018. Photo credit: Renee Rosensteel.

Peña and The Senior Group, with the help of Donna Jackson (Chair of The Larimer Consensus Group), began meeting regularly to select compelling quotes from the interviews that communicated a history of the neighborhood as told through the voices of the residents. The Senior Group and Peña then designed a prototype and hired a fabricator to make a metal sign/word balloon that would present these narratives to the neighborhood. The stories changed out every two weeks to present a continuously unfolding narrative about the lives of its eldest residents.

“Larimer Stories” by John Peña in collaboration with The Larimer Consensus Group and The Larimer Senior Group with sponsorship by the Temporary Public Art and Placemaking Program of Neighborhood Allies and Shiftworks Community + Public Arts

Sample Text from a 70-year-old resident running from October 2018 to June 2019

Since their initial collaboration, the Senior Group and Peña have continued working together to design new projects. In 2019, they took a series of field trips around the city of Pittsburgh to various cultural institutions, as well as inviting a variety of local artists to share their work. In the photograph below, four members of the group are discussing their tour of the Carnegie Museum of Art. The group’s plan was to create a conceptual proposal for a new work of art in the neighborhood.

Due to COVID-19, the seniors were not able to meet in person. Instead, Peña had monthly lunches deliver to their homes and created a printed newsletter that he mailed out to all the seniors as a way of staying connected. It was called “The Larimer Times,” and ran for a total of five amazing, insightful, creative, and informative issues. You can read them or download them as PDFs at: The Larimer Times Newsletter.