Chatham University
| www.chatham.edu
Pittsburgh, PA May 22, 2011 |
Diane Samuels and Henry Reese, Co-founders of City of Asylum/Pittsburgh |
  City of Asylum/Pittsburgh defends creative free expression as a basic human right. We are not a political organization and many of the writers to whom we provide safety are not political writers except in the sense that they wrote in a society in violent conflict or under a totalitarian regime and they wrote as artists, as if they were writing in freedom.The attempt to censor or silence a literary author represents the attempt to eradicate the imagination of every one of us and to wrest control of our future. As Huang Xiang, the Chinese poet who was the first exiled writer in our City of Asylum/Pittsburgh program, wrote – “A desolate heart doesn’t hear its echo.” td> | ||
| Barbara Luderowski and Michael Olijnyk, Co-directors of The Mattress Factory | ||
  We’re working with living artists, in the moment, creating installation art. But what is especially important is our involvement with the community. The community needed people moving through it in order to grow and so our integration into the community was important. And that starts with individuals with a vested interest. It’s the importance of the individual within the community and what an individual can do. It starts small. It all starts with you. If you pursue what you want to pursue with enormous passion and love you’ll accomplish tremendous things. |
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