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A conceptual rendering of how the pressroom might look after being redeveloped into IFEP’s “Marketplace of Ideas.”
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Greg Victor: We’re building a monument to Vladimir Putin

Rendering by Max Winters - Perkins Eastman

Greg Victor: We’re building a monument to Vladimir Putin

It’s called the International Free Expression Project

As Russian President Vladimir Putin slaughters thousands of Ukrainians, obliterates their cities and drives millions from their homes, he is ruthlessly enforcing Rule No. 1 in the dictator playbook by shutting up the Russian press and shutting down dissent. The purpose is to create a void of reliable information and contrary points of view into which he can pour lies so the Russian people won’t rise up against him.

This latest crackdown, and indeed the war itself, should be seen as the culmination of Mr. Putin’s accelerating attacks on free speech and independent media since he took power 22 years ago. He has killed, jailed, forced into exile and otherwise persecuted those who have exposed his corruption or opposed his policies — to the point that, unchecked, he could rain war on a neighbor in pursuit of his fever dream of restoring the czarist empire.

Several years ago, as Mr. Putin grew increasingly tyrannical, despots like him were proliferating across the globe. They were mobilizing security services and populist movements to attack journalists, political opponents and those they saw as a threat simply because of who they were. Extremists were executing those who held different beliefs or lived different lives. Zealots were destroying remnants of ancient civilizations, attempting to silence even the voices of the past.

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Against this international backdrop, the Post-Gazette decided to move out of its historic Downtown building at the Point. This confluence of events gave birth to the International Free Expression Project, which grew from the initial idea to incorporate discarded PG presses into a work of public art dedicated to press freedom.

IFEP has now evolved into a nonprofit organization with a broader mandate. Our mission is to help build a world in which all people can be who they are, say what they want and be heard. We encourage people to express themselves freely and protect the right of everyone else to do so. Our initiatives include building a home for free expression in the former Post-Gazette pressroom, erecting a work of public art symbolizing free expression, sponsoring the invention of immersive educational tools and supporting artistic and other creative endeavors.

The Marketplace of Ideas

IFEP is working to build a unique attraction in the cavernous former PG pressroom, where hundreds of millions of newspapers were printed over the decades. We believe it will help revitalize Downtown’s pandemic-battered economy, spread economic benefits across the region and attract visitors from Amsterdam to Zelienople.

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This “Marketplace of Ideas” will be a hive of activity filled with artwork, artifacts, performance, discussions, educational activities, artisan stalls, makerspaces, video screens, food and beverages. It will be an explosion of expression in a historic industrial setting where a newspaper that dates back to the Bill of Rights was published.

The Marketplace will be a community center, a gathering place, an experience. Activities will be programmed primarily by Pittsburgh cultural organizations, schools, museums, universities, businesses, media outlets and grassroots groups, but also by individuals and institutions from across the world that can bring fresh ideas and different perspectives to our region. The Marketplace will:

• Draw international attention to Pittsburgh as a world-class city where everyone is welcome and ideas are nourished.

• Showcase Pittsburgh’s creative achievements at the city’s front door — such as all the amazing technological innovations and works of artistic imagination that are now tucked away in Oakland, Lawrenceville, the Hill, Hazelwood Green and nearly every other Pittsburgh neighborhood.

• Activate a dead corner of Pittsburgh’s Gateway by providing an exciting indoor venue for the millions of people who gather over the course of a year at Point State Park.

• Extend to the Point the corridor of entertainment, culture and dining that runs from Lawrenceville through the Strip District and down Penn Avenue to the Cultural District and Market Square.

• Serve as a Welcome Center at the Gateway, with information and activities designed to drive visitors to local attractions such as the Cultural District, Carnegie Museums, August Wilson House and Alphabet City.

• Provide a wonderful amenity for all who work or live in the neighborhood.

• Attract tourists, tenants and investment to Downtown.

• Create jobs.

• Offer platforms for under-represented communities to be heard.

• Provide a venue for musicians, artists, filmmakers, dancers, playwrights and other creators from every corner of Pittsburgh.

The Marketplace is an ambitious undertaking, but it is not a pipedream. Marketability and financial analyses show that we can make it financially self-sustaining. And IFEP’s high-powered development team is already moving into pre-construction activities, such as vetting architecture and construction firms.

An iconic work of public art

IFEP also plans to erect the world’s first signature work of public art symbolizing free expression. We’ve begun assembling experts in material and computer science, engineering, robotics, art technology, artificial intelligence and other fields to design a three-dimension artwork that can actually be programmed to change its form — an artwork as dynamic as free expression itself. It could materialize as the work of a Brazilian artist one week and the words of an exiled Chinese writer the following week.

This artwork also will generate renewable energy, thanks to our partner, Land Art Generator Initiative, which has organized international competitions for Melbourne, Copenhagen, Abu Dhabi, Glasgow and other cities to design public art that generates solar, wind, water and other types of clean energy.

Thousands of strikingly creative designs have been submitted in LAGI competitions for more than a decade. Later this year, we and LAGI plan to convene community gatherings to generate ideas, support and participation for a Pittsburgh competition.

Immersive education

We will develop immersive educational tools and activities — such as interactive displays, e-games and robots — that drive home the importance of free expression. These will be sprinkled throughout the Marketplace and road-tested. Once fine-tuned, they will be made available to teachers and advocacy groups worldwide.

We already are working with CMU’s CREATE Lab to add data layers to its interactive EarthTime machine so that it can graphically display attacks on free expression — from the global to the individual-case level, over time and in real time. We also have launched an online series of conversations about free expression titled “Visionaries,” the first of which featured former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron.

A new venue for the arts

We support artists and innovators by commissioning and exhibiting their work. To date, we’ve mounted popup displays, a pressroom art installation and mural exhibitions on the facades of two Downtown buildings: “Faces of Free Expression” and “There is Black Art in the Future.”

We have hosted performances and talks by exiled Vietnamese musician/​dissident Mai Khoi in New York, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and, just last week, in the Netherlands, where she was presented the 2022 Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award for Freedom of Speech at a ceremony attended by the Dutch king and queen. On Sept. 15, IFEP will present with Point Park University’s Center for Media Innovation the world premiere of Mai Khoi’s “Bad Activist: The Stage Show” at Pittsburgh Playhouse.

Moving forward

IFEP has made considerable progress on all fronts. We have raised nearly a half-million dollars. We’ve purchased and stored 80 tons of newspaper presses and artifacts that were scrapped when the PG moved out of Downtown, which we plan to return to the pressroom when it becomes the Marketplace of Ideas.

We have assembled an impressive International Advisory Board that includes Mai Khoi, actor/​director Michael Keaton, Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, journalist Tom Brokaw, African activist Stella Nyanzi and Omar Rabago Vital, past chair of IFEX, the global network of free expression organizations.

Collaborators have included IFEX, the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, PEN America, Yadoo artist colony, the World Affairs Council and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Funders include The Pittsburgh Foundation and Henry John Simonds Foundation.

Everyone at IFEP is exceedingly grateful to the scores of brilliant collaborators who have brought ideas and energy to the cause. We are now lined up to attract substantial national and international investment, especially if we can show robust buy-in from the Pittsburgh community. If you would like to lend a hand, please let us know: info@ifep.io. To receive updates: ifep.io/​subscribe

On nearly every continent, authoritarians are on the march. Never has it been more important to call them out and bring them down. Never again should people like Vladimir Putin be allowed to accumulate and abuse power.

As our advisory board member Michael Keaton said when opening an IFEP forum on press freedom: “This is no time for summer soldiers; it is a time to fight for a free press and free expression.”

Greg Victor, founder & CEO of IFEP (ifep.io), was a journalist for 35 years, retiring from the Post-Gazette in 2019 (gvictor@ifep.io). He also served as publications director for the Committee to Protect Journalists and Asia international affairs representative for the American Friends Service Committee.

First Published: April 24, 2022, 4:00 a.m.

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A conceptual rendering of how the pressroom might look after being redeveloped into IFEP’s “Marketplace of Ideas.”  (Rendering by Max Winters - Perkins Eastman)
The for­mer press­room at 34 Blvd of the Al­lies — fu­ture home of the In­ter­na­tional Free Ex­pres­sion Proj­ect.  (Martha Rial)
Rendering by Max Winters - Perkins Eastman
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