Title:
Assessing Commonalities in Public Art and Comprehensive Planning Practice: A Direction for Atlanta
Assessing Commonalities in Public Art and Comprehensive Planning Practice: A Direction for Atlanta
Author(s)
Britt, Meredith
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Abstract
Murals, sculptures, and other public art forms exists in public space and are a part of the everyday
experience. Increasingly, city leaders, planners, and public art practitioners realize that public art has the
potential to further desired economic, social, and design-based goals. In an analysis of the Philadelphia Mural
Arts Program (MAP), one of the most expansive public art projects in the United States, Mark J. Stern and Susan
C. Seifert write that MAP’s murals “serve as an indicator of a neighborhood that has the ingredients to create
revitalization, including a diverse population and a strong civic life. To the extent that murals serve as an
expression of that transformation, we can say they have an impact in stabilizing and sustaining processes of
community transformation” (Stern and Seifert 2003). Stern and Seifert illustrate that public art can operate as
one tool in a set of comprehensive revitalization strategies, but that it is not a “silver bullet for transformation
(Stern and Seifert 2003). Scholars today study direct impacts of public art, but more work can be done to
understand how public art fits in as a tool for broader urban development strategies. More analysis of the
intentions behind public art investments and the influence public art has on communities is needed to
understand how to artfully use it as a tool to assist in bringing about desired social and economic goals. Because
public art increasingly has social and economic intentions for urban spaces, city planners have a need to assess
how public art affects the communities in which they work. This paper assesses the current practice of public art
in the Atlanta region and its commonalities with urban planning practice.
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Date Issued
2014-05-03
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Text
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Masters Project
Applied Research Paper
Applied Research Paper