I listened to NPR. On this particular podcast, they were talking about public artwork and the meaning it gives to a community. The community they were talking about was Grand Rapids and Muskegon because I live in Michigan and those two places are well known in this area. I liked being able to listen and actually know a lot of the places that they were talking about. Whenever they said something about the community I thought that I fit into that space. They were talking about my community.
There were two guest speakers that had both been part of some big public art projects. One of the first things they said was that public art gives a sense of space. She said that an art piece can cause people to come together and where that piece of art is becomes a space for people to meet, to hang out. The space can become iconic, like the bean in Chicago. Another thing they said was that it is important for the artwork to relate to the community and place. It shouldn’t just be random but should explore the history of the area it would exist in and have some relevance to it. This is not always the case, but the public usually embraces art that reintroduces their history.
Another important factor in public art is engagement. Giving people a chance to be part of something creates a sense of belonging. When the community is actually engaged with the idea of the art that will get put up, or even with the implementation sometimes, they are usually a lot more appreciative of it. Not only does engagement get the people to determine what they want, but it also brings together people in the community from all different backgrounds. The guests mentioned a project that they worked on in the community where they asked people how they wanted to see their neighborhood grow. They ended up partnering with a highschool group and members of the community to paint trash cans. This seems like a really silly thing, but it brought the community together and they were even able to compensate the people who worked on it. They mentioned compensation as a really necessary gift to give whenever possible. On that particular project, whoever worked got compensated at least a little bit and what that does is it shows people that they are valued. A lot of people don’t even recognize they have a talent for art until they are told and compensation can convince them of that.