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  • From: "Janet Kagan" <jkagan AT nc.rr.com>
  • To: <chpac-staff AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Chpac-staff] Op-Ed in Chapel Hill News
  • Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 07:27:20 -0500

Hello CHPAC

At our monthly meeting, we agreed to submit an op-ed piece to the Chapel Hill News because (as you may remember) the paper decapitated the first paragraph of our letter to the editor, thereby changing its intended meaning. 

Following discussions with the Communications Committee and the Executive Committee, I was asked to write an op-ed that would be educational and address the proposed Public Art Contextual Plan.  I thank all of you who helped draft this response.

Please find attached, and appended below, an advance copy of the text; the piece is scheduled to run in the Sunday 6 March edition of the Chapel Hill News.
 
Very best
 
Janet
 
 

The Place of Public Art in Public Life

 

 

Chapel Hill has a longstanding commitment to preserving and enhancing our natural resources, to nurturing an intellectual and caring community that respects diverse opinion, and to honoring the needs of its residents through government programs and services.  Public art is an important part of how we create a positive civic environment.  The integration of art into our everyday experience of public space helps promote important social, political, and communal discourse while adding aesthetic value to the built environment. 

 

Public art has an extensive history: it can be found in Neanderthal cave paintings, bronze and stone works of 10th century BCE China, the arts of ancient Greece, Medieval stained glass and tapestries, the architecture of the Renaissance, and, in more recent commemorations and monuments.  Public art has historically engaged a broader environment and context, catalyzed a sense of civic pride, and added meaning and pleasure to daily life.  The Rand Corporation recently stated that art makes a contribution in the public realm through "intrinsic" and "instrumental" benefits, suggesting that communities should value the aesthetic and personal dimensions of experiencing artworks as well as the economic and educational benefits that accompany civic art programs. 

 

Contemporary public art is transcending historic definitions and limitations.  We now encounter public art in landscape; as temporary and fleeting installations; in interactive media that allow us to participate directly with the artwork; and art that is itself a functioning infrastructural element, such as sidewalks, bus shelters, or storm water drains.  Our experience of public art is no longer traditional "art in public places" that dominated art commissions during the late 20th century.  A new working definition of public art must extend beyond "place-making," and our approach to the creation of public artworks must be broad enough to include a fundamentally democratic process.

 

Successful public art emerges from a design process based on personal engagement with the community.  Leaders of public art programs must continuously ask questions of the community, and the community must maintain involvement as the artist interprets and arranges content of, and context for, the work.  Each step refines and shapes the work, and builds on an ongoing dialogue that includes the artist, community, site, designers, architects, civic leaders, and commissioning agencies. 

 

Public artists facilitate this dialogue, and create works that help us re-imagine what we see and how we see it.  All residents of Chapel Hill have unique histories, goals, beliefs, and values.  Public art can transcend these dissimilarities and connect us in new ways, with art works that become a part of our public history, reflecting and revealing ourselves to each other and to our visitors.  

 

To strengthen our sense of community, the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission (CHPAC) has initiated the design of a Public Art Contextual Plan that will reframe the context for incorporating public art into our community by identifying projects that reflect diverse interests and satisfy multiple goals.  The Town has already adopted several "action/master plans" that guide projects associated with open space and greenways, gateways, parks and recreation facilities, bicycle and pedestrian routes, and local transit mobility.  The Public Art Contextual Plan will become integral to the Comprehensive Plan, relating public art opportunities within existing and future planning efforts.  For example, the Public Art Contextual Plan might highlight an intersection that joins a new bike path with a greenway or gateway, and target that spot for public art in ways that maximize Town resources. 

 

The Plan will also outline programmatic opportunities, including percent for art projects, policies such as public art in private development, and artists working collaboratively with Town departments in design residencies.  More broadly, this planning effort will consider neighborhoods, economic development initiatives, tourism, and infrastructure, while examining architecture, demographics, natural features, cultural history, and other salient characteristics of Chapel Hill. 

 

The exhilaration of our community relies on public access to a variety of artistic _expression_, and the expectation that everyday we can encounter public works of art in public spaces.  Artist and critic Mel Gooding reminds us that public art should "engage our imagination yet sustain the capacity for infinite interpretation and reinterpretation by successive publics."  Our public artworks must captivate our senses, mental landscapes, and physical environments, which will help us celebrate who we are and strengthen our collective ownership of Chapel Hill.  

 

 

 

Attachment: CHPAC CHN REVISED Op-Ed Final.doc
Description: MS-Word document



  • [Chpac-staff] Op-Ed in Chapel Hill News, Janet Kagan, 03/04/2005

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