This multidisciplinary companion offers a comprehensive overview of the global arena of public art.
It is organised around four distinct topics: activation, social justice, memory and identity, and ecology, with a final chapter mapping significant works of public and social practice art around the world between 2008 and 2018. The thematic approach brings into view similarities and differences in the recent globalisation of public art practices, while the multidisciplinary emphasis allows for a consideration of the complex outcomes and consequences of such practices, as they engage different disciplines and communities and affect a diversity of audiences beyond the existing 'art world'. The book will highlight an international selection of artist projects that illustrate the themes.
This book will be of interest to scholars in contemporary art, art history, urban studies, and museum studies.
PART I: Introduction 1. Expanding Our Collective Imagination Through Public Art and Social Practice PART II: Activation 2. Towards a Public of ‘the Otherwise’ 3. Japan’s Rural Art Festivals: The Echigo-Tsumari Paradigm 4. Shaking the Snow Globe and Changing the City 5. Political Art and Metaphoric Exchange 6. Gardens and Grains: Design Activations in the Public Realm 7. ACT: Activating City Transience PART III: Social Justice 8. Art as Protest: The Forced Eviction of the Shijhou and Sa’owac Urban Indigenous Tribes in Taiwan 9. Participation Problematises: Together in Violence 10. As If: An Embodied Account 11. Quiet Gestures, Gift Exchange, and Public Formations: The Work of D.A.N.C.E. Art Club and Public Share 12. Surviving Institutionalised Care: Accessibility as Social Practice PART IV: Memory and Identity 13. Suspended Memory: Ebbs and Flows in Attempts at Memorialising in Post-Apartheid South Africa 14. The Double Act of Flower Time 15. (In)famous: Contemporary Lessons from History’s Heroes 16. Public Art, Cultural Identity, and the River of Oblivion 17. Luanda’s Emotional Geography 18. The Imaginary Institution of Place: Notes on Art-led Place-Making as Aesthetic, Social, and Temporal Engineering 19. The Battle of Public Sculptures: On Three Sculptures in Hong Kong 20. Public Art, Gentrification, and the Preservation of Black and BrownUrban Identity: The Case of Little Haiti, Miami – an Interview with Muralist Serge Toussaint PART V: Ecology 21. Digging in the World: Art and Emergent Forms for Living 22. Landscape, Eco-Arts Practice, and Digital Technology in the Public Art Realm 23. Changing Space 24. Ensemble Practices 25. Public Art Visions and Possibilities: From the View of a Practising Artist 26. A Compass Rose for the Anthropocene: New Maps for Old – the Art of Transforming Cultures for Sustainable Futures 27. In the Time of Art with Policy: The Practice of Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison Alongside Global Environmental Policy Since the 1970s 28. The Harrisons’ Practice in the Context of Global Environmental Policy and Politics from the 1960s to 2019: A Timeline PART VI: Mapping Social Change 29. Mapping Art in the Public Realm 2008–2018
Cameron Cartiere is a creative practitioner, writer, and researcher focused on public art, urban renewal, and environmental issues. She is co-editor of The Everyday Practice of Public Art (with Martin Zebracki) and The Practice of Public Art (with Shelly Willis). Leon Tan is an arts, culture, design, and mental health consultant and educator, whose research focuses on cultural expression and the public realm. Dr Tan is an associate professor of design and contemporary arts at Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
