Shiftworks at Shore Thing: Kinesthetic Instruments: Objects for Play and Noticing with Makenzie O’Connor

Kinesthetic Instruments is a hands-on workshop inviting participants to reflect on stagnation and movement through the making of small kinetic sculptures. Using paper, pliable plant materials, and waxed linen thread, participants will tie, glue, stitch, and assemble materials to create objects that respond to wind, gesture, and interaction.

Inspired by windsocks used to measure wind, kites that have long symbolized liberation and connection, and the playfulness of pinwheels, these handmade objects become tools for noticing, connecting, and imagining. Part sculpture and part instrument, they invite us to tune into the relationship between body and environment.

Together, we’ll slow down, pay attention, and discover how movement can transform the unseen into something visible and shared.

This workshop is part of the Pittsburgh Creative Corps artist program series, presented by Shiftworks Community + Public Arts and made possible by the City of Pittsburgh’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Arts Programming initiative. For more info, visit: pittsburghcreativecorps.org.

About the Artist

Mak is an artist, designer, and researcher whose practice centers care-full space-making, understanding spaces as living systems of exchange between bodies, materials, memory, and meaning. They are drawn toward processes of possibility and approach design as a form of relationship-building, a way of tending to the invisible forces that shape how people feel, move, and orient themselves in the world.

Drawing from disability studies, phenomenology, and feminist design theory, Mak investigates how environments structure power through their affordances — how they invite, restrict, or reshape embodied experience. Their work examines how spatial and material systems can either constrain or expand possibility, and how design might contribute to more just and equitable ways of dwelling in and moving through the world.

Through publication design, spatial interventions, environmental graphics, and material fabrication, they develop projects that foreground lived experience, inviting attentiveness, sensory openness, presence, and belonging.

Parking and Transportation

Paid public parking is available in the nearby North Shore Garage (across E. General Robinson Street from the Andy Warhol Museum). Paid street parking may be available in the vicinity including along Isabella Street.

If taking public transportation, there is a Pittsburgh Regional Transit stop at Sandusky and Isabella Street that serves routes 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, and P13.

If taking the light rail system, the North Side T Station is approximately two blocks away located between W General Robinson Street, Reedsdale Street, Tony Dorsett Drive, and Mazeroski Way.

For more information, please visit the Pittsburgh Regional Transit website at: https://www.rideprt.org/.

If arriving by bicycle, there are bike racks available at and around Allegheny Landing near the riverfront and the Three Rivers Heritage Trail. There is a POGOH station located at the North Shore Trail & Fort Duquesne Bridge. For more information on POGOH Bike Share, please visit: https://pogoh.com/system-map/

Access and Accommodations

This event will be held outdoors on a barge on the Allegheny River. To access the barge, enter Allegheny Landing Park from the Clemente Bridge side and follow the paved walkway down to the riverwalk. The entrance to the barge is a gangway over the water. It is wheelchair accessible.

Public restrooms are available along the riverwalk below the Clemente Bridge. One of the restrooms is ADA accessible.

To request additional accommodations for this event, please submit your request in writing on the event registration form. A Shiftworks staff member will follow up with you directly about your request. We will attempt to implement requests for reasonable accommodations to the best of our ability, but cannot guarantee that all requests will be met. Alternate accommodations may be suggested by staff. All requests must be made by Monday, August 3, 2025.

Questions should be directed to ashley@shiftworkspgh.org.

Photography, Videography, and Other Documentation

Participants should be aware that photography, video recording, and/or other documentation of the event by Shiftworks, other attendees, or the media may take place during the event. Participants will have an opportunity to indicate if they choose to opt out of being included in event documentation, and our team will make reasonable efforts to accommodate these preferences.

Registration

This event is free to attend; advance registration is required. The button below will redirect you to Riverlife’s Shore Thing web page where you will complete your registration.