In “Pittsburgh’s Jazz History,” Tiffany Danaja Isabella Sims ( @tiffany_di_sims ) traces how jazz moved by river, rail, and migration into the Hill District, where venues like the Crawford Grill, the Leader House, Collins Inn, and the Hurricane helped build a vibrant Black cultural world. Read the full essay on Project Blue Space.
Image credit: Charles “Teenie” Harris (1908–1998), Male entertainer dancing with fingers pointed to floor, beside microphone, in club with jazz musician caricatures on bandstand, c. 1940–1945. Heinz Family Fund. Courtesy Carnegie Museum of Art, Teenie Harris Archive
African American family group camped on a levee during the 1897 Lower Mississippi River flood. Image credit: Refugees on levee, April 17, 1897 / photo by Carroll’s Art Gallery. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division #projectbluespace
In “Blue as a Condition,” Tara Fay Coleman ( @mstarafay ) frames blue as an emotional climate shaped by grief, endurance, & Pittsburgh’s rivers. Read the full essay on Project Blue Space.
Image credit: Charles “Teenie” Harris (1908–1998), Intersection of Wylie Avenue and Fullerton Street with Blue Note Cafe and Goode Pharmacy, on foggy night, Hill District, c. 1945–1965. Heinz Family Fund. Courtesy Carnegie Museum of Art, Teenie Harris Archive
A large group of African American spectators gathers along Buffalo Bayou to witness a baptism, circa 1900. Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries. #projectbluespace
At Project Blue Space, our mission centers on the preservation of place, tradition, and thought. The blues have stood as a foundational pillar of Afro-diasporic cultural expression since time immemorial. From the historic Kofar Mata dye pits in Kano, Nigeria, founded in 1498, to the evocative poetics found in Langston Hughes’s The Weary Blues, released in 1926, we strive to keep this tradition alive. To honor this legacy, we have launched our inaugural phase by inviting an esteemed group of thinkers and scholars to contribute original essays, which are now available for you to read online.
We send a special thank you to our contributors in blue :
Alonna J. Carter @pghherstorian
Amarie Cemone Gipson @amariecemone
Jessica Lanay @ihavehorrorvacui
Tara Fay Coleman @mstarafay
Tiana Reid @tianareid
Tiffany Danaja Isabella Sims @tiffany_di_sims
African-American Women Drawing Water from Pond, from the Film, “The Emerging Woman” Produced by the Women’s Film Project, Inc. , 1910. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) #projectbluespace
To our community,
Blue is a language we carry.
Black people’s relationship to water exists in many ways: from the act of submersion during baptism, the refuge of the Atlantic when choosing bodily death over enslavement, and the Afro-Futuristic submerged worlds of Drexciya.
Blues, thumping bass, and bounce soundtracks have fueled the jerking and rolling contortions of Black joy and sensuality of dance. The fluidity of Black people – our movements, our identities, and our bodies – is displayed in our connections to water bodies. Parables of the sea, journeys along the world’s great rivers, and even yearning created by our lack of access to clean water generate the movements of Black people in both imagination and the physical journey to freedom.
Project Blue Space began as a question I carried while walking along the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, PA: what has the water preserved of our history, and what of the water do we still hold within us?
Over the coming months, you’ll explore these questions with us as we unlock histories, build maps, and share essays from some of our brightest scholars and thinkers.
With gratitude to all our contributors; to The Mellon Foundation for its generous support; to Producers Hub, our fiscal sponsor; and to Jeewon Kim, our visual architect, who shaped our brand identity and built our digital home. I also want to thank the City of Pittsburgh—especially its three rivers—for guiding this journey of discovery, and to honor the rich legacy of Black ancestors whose histories we aim to preserve through Project Blue Space.
We are so glad you are here.
— Shikeith
Welcome to the first phase of Project Blue Space, an interdisciplinary platform investigating the profound historical, cultural, and political connections between Black communities and bodies of water. Click the link in our bio to get a look at all that we have been up too! 🌊🌊🌊🌊
“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.” —
Toni Morrison
🔵
Launching in Spring 2026, Project Blue Space ( @projectbluespace ) centers the profound, intrinsic connection between Black communities and water. Our goal? To preserve our histories and the cultural expressions shaped along the water’s edge.
🔵
How do we plan to do this? Through exciting public programming for all ages and an interactive website featuring historical archives and thought-provoking scholarship from some of today’s leading thinkers. Together, we’re reimagining waterways as spaces for education, reflection, and collective remembrance.
🔵
Our work begins in Pittsburgh, focusing on the enduring connection between Black life and the city’s iconic Three Rivers. With generous support from the @mellonfoundation , this work is made possible and accessible to all.
🔵
Join our community list by signing up at the link in our bio (projectbluespace.org) to stay informed, get involved, and help carry these stories forward.
See you in the Spring! 🌊🌊🌊🌊
