Shiftworks Community + Public Arts is a Pittsburgh-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working across southwestern Pennsylvania to collaboratively shape the public realm and catalyze community-led change. Through community-engaged artist projects, Shiftworks supports the growth of social, cultural, and neighborhood assets. Shiftworks achieves this by delivering civically engaged public art, artist services, public programming, and client services.
About
We work at the convergence of public art and civic design in the Pittsburgh region.
Shiftworks Community + Public Arts envisions a region in which the creative practices of artists are fully engaged to collaboratively shape the public realm and catalyze community-led change. Shiftworks builds capacity for this work through civically engaged public art, artist resources, public programming, and technical assistance.
Guiding Principles
Artists are agents of social, civic, and cultural change. We support them to work with communities.
Community members are highly valued collaborators with expertise in their neighborhoods. We build capacity for them to engage with artists.
Equity and social justice are the foundation of our work. We center equitable and just practices through staff commitments as well as in our programs, partnerships, and collaborations.
A successful public art landscape depends upon a thriving network of public art practitioners. We build tools and systems to support the public art ecosystem in the region.
History
From Office for Public Art to Shiftworks Community + Public Arts
Formerly the Office of Public Art (OPA), Shiftworks launched in 2005 through partnership between the public and private sectors to support and advance the role of public art in the Pittsburgh region. The organization flourished, developing an ecosystem for public art in the region and establishing its reputation as an organization with valued and skilled collaborators, planners, and implementers.
In 2024, OPA relaunched as an independent nonprofit and adopted the name Shiftworks Community + Public Arts. This change signaled a years-long shift for the organization, which had moved away from the role of a behind-the-scenes collaborator into that of a leading agency. Today, Shiftworks pursues new initiatives, builds systems, and develops the resources necessary to create a sustainable and diverse ecosystem for public art for southwestern Pennsylvania.
Our Team
Organizational Structure
Shiftworks Community + Public Arts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Shiftworks is supported by a Board of Directors and an Advisory Committee, both of which meet quarterly.
Shiftworks Board of Directors
Courtney Abegunde, member at large, Operations Director, Steel Smiling
J. Thomas Agnew, member at large, cultural entrepreneur and Co-Founder of BOOM Concepts
Shad Henderson, Vice-President and Co-Chair, Senior Director of Public and Private Partnerships at Neighborhood Allies
Sarah Long Holland, acting Treasurer, artist and organizational consultant
Shaunda McDill, Secretary, Managing Director at Pittsburgh Public Theater and Producer at DEMASKUS Theater Collective
Rachel Saul Rearick, President and Co-Chair, Executive Director of Contemporary Craft
Kyle C. Webster, member at large, attorney
Shiftworks Advisory Committee
J. Thomas Agnew, cultural entrepreneur and Co-Founder of BOOM Concepts
Bruce Chan, Senior Director of Urban Design, Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership
Yu-San Cheng, Associate Director, Contemporary Craft
Fran Flaherty, Artist; Director, Joseph F. and Helen C. Dyer Arts Center at Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Joseph Hall, Executive Director, Kelly Strayhorn Theater
Njaimeh Njie, Artist
Funding
The work of Shiftworks is generously supported by contributions from The Heinz Endowments, Hillman Family Foundation, McCune Foundation, Opportunity Fund, The Pittsburgh Foundation, and the Our Town program of the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Image credits
Top to bottom, left to right:
(1) Photo by Shiftworks; (2) Market Square Public Art Program, photo by Renee Rosensteel; (3) The Village, part of Homecoming: Hill District, USA by artist Njaimeh Njie, photo by Shiftworks; (4) Khūrākī by artist Molly Rice, photo by Heather Mull; (5) Streaming Space by artists Alisha B. Wormsley and Ricardo Robinson, photo by Renee Rosensteel; (6) Staff photos by sarah huny young, Ethan Heffley, Rayni Shiring, Brandon Howe, and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh