On Friday, November 3, we celebrated the opening of Collage City: Memory, Experience, and Depicting Dreams, an interactive exhibition at Assemble that explores the spatial and aesthetic interpretations of dreams based on the Dream Diary collages by artist-architect Annie Wang. As part of Pittsburgh’s Unblurred: First Fridays on Penn Avenue, the exhibition welcomed a constant flow of visitors of all ages, who engaged with the art and collaged their own dreams to contribute to the interactive “Collage City” dream wall. The night also featured a few special guest appearances: Annie Wang interpreted visitors’ dreams live in the gallery, Jungian Analyst Stan Marlan led a Q&A, and Lauren Russell read dream-inspired poems from her new book, What’s Hanging on The Hush?

The evening was followed by a workshop Saturday afternoon, led by Annie Wang, that helped kids in grades K-5 to explore their own dream interpretation and collaging techniques. The exhibition is open all month and our second workshop Wednesday, November 29 will involve practical design skill-building activities for students in grades 3-5, led by local nonprofit Drafting Dreams.

Collage City was made possible thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and donors, the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, Soup N’At, Franktuary, Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival, Caliban Books, Penguin Book Shoppe, City of Asylum Books, and Una Biologicals.

Thanks are also due to the team of students who contributed to the exhibition and the opening night: Ilana Curtis, Kyle Wing, Adam Kor, Emily Ebersol, Aby Sobotka/Briner, KelliLaurel Mijares, Jen Wang, Sarah Grossman, Amanda Bartko, Iris Wang, and Kyleen Pickering, and our wonderful volunteer Jess Werbeach. Sean Chia assisted with exhibition installation and beautifully captured the event. A dream-inspired soundtrack for opening night was developed with Ben Rafson, Roger Rafson, Jeff Heinzl, and Chahni Peeples. Finally, we’d like to thank Assemble’s fantastic team—especially Nina Barbuto, Hannah Sauder, Jess Gould, Adeshewa Metzger, and Jayla Patton—for helping make this dream come to life.

Photos by Sean Chia.

Artist-architect Annie Wang (foreground) in front of the gallery wall.

The collage table to the right was busy all night, with visitors of all ages eager to express their dreams.

Originally made as digital collages, this is the first time Annie Wang's pieces can be viewed in print.

Stan Marlan, President of the Pittsburgh Society of Jungian Analysts, and PLP founder Sarah Rafson present a Q&A on the meaning of dreams to a full house.

Collage City: Dispatches from Opening Weekend