Public Artworks Research Articles

LGBTQ+ themed public art: promoting an expanded view on genders and advancing gender education

This essay explores the transformative role of LGBTQ+ themed public art in promoting an expanded view of genders and advancing gender education. By engaging with Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, I want to stress how public art both serves as a medium for aesthetic expression and also acts as a crucial participant in the performative act of gender identity construction. From the vibrant defiance of rainbow crosswalks to the poignant narratives of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and the impactful murals by Keith Haring, LGBTQ+ themed public art challenges traditional gender roles and identities, offering alternative visions that resist binary classifications. These public artworks create inclusive spaces that foster community engagement, historical commemoration, and activism, effectively enhancing public pedagogy in gender education. By embedding diverse and non-normative expressions of gender and sexuality in public consciousness, such art prompts a reevaluation of societal norms, thereby contributing to a broader understanding and acceptance of gender diversity. This essay emphasizes the potential of LGBTQ+ -themed public art to serve as a dynamic medium for communicative pedagogy, manifesting its significance in shaping social consciousness and advancing the cause of gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights.

Efficacy assessments of public artworks intervening in rural built environments for tourism developments: a comparative study of two tourism villages in Hangzhou

ABSTRACT Interventions through rural tourism programs and rural art projects have played a significant role in rural revitalization initiatives in China, wherein public artworks have been deliberately integrated into rural built environments. This study combined both objective and subjective measurements, in two representative tourism villages in Hangzhou that underwent revitalizations. These artworks were strategically placed in the public domains of the villages in two distinct phases, enabling the calculation of their Visual Exposure Rates (VERs). Objective evaluations were gathered on-site via the Comprehensive Assessment of Artworks and Surroundings (CAAS) survey, and the data were subjected to quantitative analysis using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The study reveals differential changes in VERs across the two villages, concurrently observing variations in the CAAS scores. Findings indicate the efficient promotion of fusion design to support sustainable rural tourism in three dimensions: spatial layout characteristics, cultural and aesthetic values, and tourism management practices. It suggested that sustainable rural tourism development should not hinge solely on increasing the quantity of public artworks but rather on the holistic improvement of sustainable spatial design and management to enhance the rural value chain, ensuring a more comprehensive and sustainable tourism experience

Rift - Memory Activism as Repair

Rift is a self-initiated public artwork commemorating victims of death shootings in Sweden. On each of the sites of a shooting, there is placed a paving slab with a rift filled with an inlay of bronze. The slabs contain no information about the events they commemorate, no names or dates. The project began in 2020 in Malmö, and most recently, in April 2024, two slabs were placed in Stockholm. This interview with the artists behind the work, Loke Berg, Erik Vestman, and Viggo Wichmann, focuses on the role of memory in the public space, what this work means to the artists, and how one can imagine a collective mourning. At the core of the interview is a discussion of memory activism, repair, and who is publicly grievable.

Making With Place: Community Artists Theorizing Change

This article confronts tensions of “risk” and “change” in youth engagement and community arts, towards insights for alternate world-building. We problematize overly instrumental approaches, by examining aesthetic and inductive theories of change arising from Making With Place, a research creation initiative based in Toronto, Canada. From Spring 2020 to Fall 2022, we engaged diverse young people as artist-researchers in community arts production experiments exploring concepts of place from individual and collective perspectives. We draw here on resulting public artworks, discussions with the artists, and our own field notes to surface the theories of change arising from this work. We identify three emergent metaphors—the garden, the bridge, the margins—and the ways in which they resist dominant discourses in favor of new practices of imagination and repair. We explore how these creative explorations articulate theories of change that refuse forgetting and call forth desire.

The Unchanging Representation of the 1956 Revolution in Public Art in Budapest

Hungary, and especially its capital, Budapest, is famous for its vast number of public artworks. Unlike their impressive quantity and diversity, their representation techniques are rather monotonous. Apart from nostalgia apparent in those works that represent emotionally charged narratives about the past, we can also trace the anxiety of new forms and interpretations, manifesting itself in the constant over-repetition of well-known symbols and representations. The article investigates possible reasons behind the unchanging character of these public artworks despite the increasing number and variety of procures. In terms of methodology, this paper follows the author’s work on numerous smaller projects and draws on secondary literature, case studies, and content analysis of policy documents and media coverage of particular events. The article presents the memorials dedicated to the 1956 revolution erected in Budapest between 1989 and 2019, focusing on their symbolic and political dimensions as well as physical context. The investigation points out that the range of procurers of public art in Budapest is still not varied, and the lack of expert assessment also prevents contemporary representations. Moreover, the general public does not and cannot play a role in memorialization processes. The observations made in this paper suggest how this particular public art genre manifests nostalgia about the glorious (but failed) historical moment and anxiety of newforms and interpretations.

The Integration of Public Art and Social and Cultural Values

This study aims to explore the integration of public art and social and cultural values, and analyze the role and influence of public art in the development of community culture through in-depth study of the interaction between public art and social and cultural values. The research method adopts the case analysis method to draw relevant conclusions through an in-depth analysis of the interaction between specific public art works and community culture. The research results show that the integration of public art and social and cultural values is of great practical significance and can promote the prosperity and development of community culture. At the same time, it also provides new ideas and directions for the creation and design of public art. During the research, we collected a large amount of data through questionnaires and field interviews, and conducted an in-depth analysis of public works of art and community culture. The study found that public art not only has aesthetic value, but also has social and cultural value, which can promote the exchange and dissemination of community culture. At the same time, the interaction between public art and community culture is also very close, and the design and creation of public art works need to fully consider the cultural background and needs of the community. In addition, this study also found practical cases of public art in the development of community culture, which provides a useful reference and reference for future public art creation. In a word, this study provides a new perspective and method for the integration of public art and social and cultural values, which is of great theoretical and practical significance for promoting the prosperity and development of community culture.

Why discussion of sculptures and monuments is sadly outdated

AbstractThis article explores the evolving discourses on sculptures, monuments and open space, under the context of recent changes in the world that influence people's perception of public artworks, shifting from original artistic appreciation to increasingly intense socio‐political scrutiny. It considers multiple statues of importance, which were erected, admired, or disdained by the public. This article calls for an urgent need to take inclusive approaches to the representation of artworks in public space that honor women and minorities. Potential solutions are explored, including relocating controversial statues to places of less centrality, adding explanatory plaques, and considering virtual sculptures to preserve open spaces. This article acknowledges that history is not always static and that there's an ongoing trend that artworks in public are placed to inspire new meanings. It contributes to the critical discussion of how art should be and in what way can artworks influence people's perceptions over time.

공공미술을 둘러싼 공동체의 담론

The purpose of this paper is to show that the controversial discourse over the existence of Richard Serra's public art works, “Lifted Arc”, over the past seven years, had a profound influence on the changes in public art. Public art was divided into location and aesthetic aspects, and the cause of the failure of “Lifted Arc” was found in each of them. The cause of the locational aspect is related to the understanding of “public”, where the place of life and the physical place intersect, and the aesthetic aspect is due to the conflict between the artist's free expression and public taste. When pursuing a desirable form of public art through the above, first, publicity is not limited to physical places, but is made up of the participation and intervention of people living there, and second, the aesthetic achievement of public art can be obtained from the discourse of interaction rather than from the aesthetic experience itself. This public art as a “discussion venue” symbolizes cultural democracy that guarantees freedom and equality in that art creates a place for the pursuit of meaning.

“Normalising” flying-foxes: a bold vision for improving the public perceptions of our largest and most conspicuous bats

ABSTRACT Negative public attitudes toward particular species can have significant impact on their conservation. Traditional approaches to improving public perceptions of flying-foxes include defending them, encouraging co-existence with them and promoting empathy for them following publicised mortality events. We propose a shift toward “normalising” flying-foxes, in which they are portrayed as interesting species and a natural part of our highly esteemed biodiversity. This has somewhat already begun in a piecemeal fashion, and we provide examples of flying-foxes being represented in a range of formats, including museum and photography exhibitions, public artwork and street décor, books, preschool and school education, wildlife-based tourism and community events. However, there remains paucity in flying-foxes being represented alongside portrayals of Australian wildlife at a broader scale. We suggest that proponents fearing public backlash or impacts on market responses are a likely barrier to seeing flying-foxes being represented more widely; but conclude with hope that current participation in depicting flying-foxes as interesting and part of biodiversity will gain momentum. Ultimately, through normalising flying-foxes, public attitudes adopting their intrinsic value may eventually overshadow the perspectives of flying-foxes connected to contentious issues.

Breathe for Ella: artivism, intersectionality and sensing air pollution

This paper responds to Breathe:2022, a multi-sited public artwork across London and the UK by mixed media artist Dryden Goodwin. Read as artivism, I argue that Breathe:20222 demarginalizes existing discourse on air pollution by intervening in public space and framing air pollution as an embodied and intersectional experience. This paper contextualizes Breathe:2022 in relation to a contemporary politics of atmospheric governance following the tragic case of Ella Kissi-Debrah. I hold that Goodwin’s artistic portrayal of breathing shows a processual condition of exposure that resituates knowledge of air in the breathing body. In doing so, the work suggests a possible paradigm shift in narratives of air pollution whereby phenomenological understandings of breathing and breathlessness might enhance, corroborate, put into perspective or hold to account scientific measurements of air quality. To orientate this approach, I put forward the notion of “breathing interfaces” as material and affective zones (buildings, bodies and digital media) where qualities of air become palpable and where bodies and worlds become together. Circling back to Breathe for Ella in the conclusion, I reflect forces of hope and uncertainty regarding the legacy of Goodwin’s artivism and its related campaigns.

The Art of Memory: Archiving Street Art using the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model

This paper presents a detailed discussion of the data modelling and functional implementation of a semantically-enabled knowledge base related to the creation, digitisation and archiving of large-scale public art works. Based on principles of international best practice, standards and interoperability, the paper focuses on the use of the CIDOC-CRM ontology used in conjunction with the Arches Digital Cultural Heritage data management system to model street art-related entities and their semantic relationships. The work presented here is an extension of the work of the mementoArtem Digital Street Art Archive Project being carried out in conjunction with the INSYTE-Cooley Research Laboratory (I-CRL), South East Technological University (SETU), Waterford, Ireland.

Infinite Barnacle: The AI Image and Imagination in GANs from Personal Snapshots

Abstract Today’s artificial intelligence image generation tools create images from datasets. These training sets are typically images sourced from the World Wide Web. However, artists may produce their own datasets from photographs. This essay explores one such process. In it, the artist discusses training a generative adversarial network (GAN) from images of personal memories. These images are shared here not as public artworks, but as personal photographs: snapshots reproduced and newly imagined by a machine. The essay explores the distortion that AI image generation introduces to memory and imagination, connecting ideas of photography to cybernetics to expose new ways of theorizing the image in the current stage of AI. It concludes that a theory of A imagery may borrow from theories of traditional photography but must examine its distinctions.

The Impact Of Public Art On People's Well-Being Under The Influence Of Pandemics

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the well-being of people across the globe, and there is an urgent need to explore novel and feasible ways to enhance the happiness of residents. This review article explores the potential of public art as a response to this challenge. Through a review of existing literature, this article first outlines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people. Next, this study describes the diverse attributes of public art, emphasizing its ability to enhance leisure and social experiences and promote community engagement. Finally, drawing on psychological, sociological, and urban planning research, this paper synthesizes the evidence for the impact of public art on people's well-being. The findings suggest a conceptual framework for public art to enhance people's well-being. The proposed conceptual framework suggests the adoption of quality public art under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby stimulating people's well-being in public spaces. This study suggests further research on how public art can enhance aesthetics to promote cultural heritage and improve people's leisure and emotional experiences to stimulate people's well-being. The results are significant and will help artists create more high-quality public artworks for urban public spaces to evoke people's sense of well-being.

일상화된 공공미술을 통한 새로운 방향성의 모색

The purpose of this paper is to explore a new direction for public art through Antony Gormley's “Event Horizon”, a public art work introduced into urban life. Therefore, Chapter 2 deals with how Antony Gormley's representative public art works harmonized with the local community. Chapter 3 sheds light on the fact that “Event Horizon” expanded the gallery into an urban space and established itself as a public art encompassing the cultural topography of the city. In Chapter 4, the meaning and implications of public art were identified through the “Event Horizon” that led to New York. Through this, it was confirmed that public art is a new direction to become the lives of urban people and to create a better tomorrow by illuminating the various lives of the city.

Research on the Preference of Public Art Design in Urban Landscapes: Evidence from an Event-Related Potential Study

As urbanization quickens, the role of public art in urban landscape design gains prominence. Nevertheless, how stylistic characteristics of landscape public art affect aesthetic preferences remains insufficiently discussed, particularly with objective assessment methods. The use of event-related potential (ERP) can offer neurophysiological evidence to support research and practice in landscape art design. We employed a 2 (artistic features) × 2 (professional proficiency) repeated-measures design, involving abstract and figurative experimental stimuli; both experts and non-experts participated, with their aesthetic reactions and relevant electroencephalographic data recorded. Behavioral findings show a preference for figurative public artworks regardless of professional background. From neurophysiological outcomes, stimuli elicit an elevated N100 during early perceptual processing, signifying increased attentional resources. During aesthetic processing, figurative stimuli more effectively evoke positive emotions, particularly among professionals, yielding a heightened P200 response. Conversely, abstract stimuli may evoke a higher N200 amplitude, reflecting augmented negative biases. Nevertheless, non-experts exhibit no marked differences in their stimulus responses during aesthetic processing. Research indicates that low-level physical attributes of public artworks are initially noted, while the visual processing of artistic traits lies at a higher perceptual level, necessitating specialized expertise involvement. Furthermore, the complexity of visual perceptual processing plays a significant role in the assessment of landscape art preferences. This study not only offers crucial reference indices for designing urban landscapes that satisfy diverse public aesthetic needs but also lays the foundation for neural techniques to assess landscape design preferences and expands the field of landscape design research.

Decoding a drawing: The stained‐glass color scheme of the altar of Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Fátima

AbstractIn the process of cataloging the estate of modernist artist Almada Negreiros, many preparatory drawings for several of the author's public artworks are currently being identified. The volume and complexity of his prolific work imply that sometimes it is hard to connect specific documents and artworks of research and preparation to their respective final works. Recently, one particular drawing proved to be the key for understanding several other documents, simultaneously contributing to clarify the artist's methodology when preparing for the large‐scale stained glass behind the altar of Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Fátima. This article presents these new advances.

More-than-human heritage: The political ecologies of the Paul Robeson tomato

Paul Robeson's global memorialization poorly represents the extent to which the famous African American activist, actor, athlete, singer, and scholar impacted international culture and politics. Robeson's memorials, while few and far between, particularly in the United States, reside primarily within college campuses and theatrical and musical productions, alongside a few more traditional plaques, works of public art, and his own work. While there has been some interest in these various memorials, commemorations, and works of Robeson, no one has yet explored one of the most widespread and historically loaded aspects of his commemoration: the Paul Robeson Tomato. This heirloom tomato, developed in the Soviet Union, has, as one seed website states, "a cult following." Reading through various gardening and seed websites, we find that the tomato has a special place among heirlooms. At the same time, the digital and print networks conveying information about the tomato and Paul Robeson silence and twist Robeson's memorialization given political, cultural, and ecological contexts. This leads us to ask a number of questions, particularly how we might understand this tomato within the broader memory and memorialization of Paul Robeson? How does this human-environment interaction of more-than-human memory impact Robeson's legacy? And how can we further think of living memory beyond human experience to the remainder of the natural landscape around us and the power it has? This project explores these notions of living memory, more-than-human, and memorialization in the context of the histories which envelop Paul Robeson and the tomato.

An Investigation of the Use of Augmented Reality in Public Art

Augmented reality offers many artistic possibilities when it comes to the creation of place-based public artworks. In this paper, we present a series of works around the topic of augmented reality (AR) art and place-based storytelling, including the use of walking as a creative method, a series of workshops with emerging artists, public AR art collaborations and a study to examine user experience when interacting with such artworks. Our findings from these works show the potential of integrating augmented reality with public physical artworks and offer guidance to artists and AR developers on how to expand this potential. For artists, we show the importance of the space in which the artwork will be placed and provide guidance on how to work with the space. For developers, we find that there is a need to create tools that work with artists’ existing practices and to investigate how to expand augmented reality past the limitations of site- or piece-specific apps.

Two Whitmans: Peripheral Monumentality in South Philadelphia

This article examines the contemporary politics of commemoration through analysis of the public life of two statues of Walt Whitman in South Philadelphia. Sited near a highway on-ramp and the entrance to a shopping plaza, the monuments to Whitman accompanied and celebrated significant urban spatial transformations in the mid- to late-twentieth century. At the same time, they commemorate battles over neighborhood identity and Whitman’s legacy. In recent years, local conflicts over Whitman’s legacy have been revived in activism to remove a statue of the poet in neighboring Camden, New Jersey. But, in South Philadelphia, debates about the future of public monuments have largely ignored both representations of Whitman. As I trace the lives of both statues, I argue that the quiet persistence of the two South PhiladelphiaWhitmans illustrates the complex political power of public artworks occupying awkward spatial and social positions.

Public art tourism: Atmospheric stories in city margins

Cities play a pivotal role in progressing cultural tourism, embracing everyday life, where particular cityscapes afford a diversity of cultural practices. The ethnographic storying of two city public artworks presents a backcloth of historical, cultural and religio-political outlooks. Public art and idiosyncratic atmospherics provide conflicting narratives of how pubic art attends wider religion-tourism concerns. Both public artworks observe ‘together-apart’ imaginings of a past-present legacy. This study traces their effect, through researcher short vignettes, visual culture and poetic reflection. This study contributes to the religion-tourism nexus, drawing on political, cultural, religious and social perspectives, which underpin these urban tourism sites. Public art has to make sense, have cultural competence and resonate with citizens.