1st Edition
The Routledge Companion to Art in the Public Realm
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
Cameron Cartiere and Leon Tan
PART II: Activation
2. Towards a Public of ‘the Otherwise’
Meenakshi Thirukode
3. Japan’s Rural Art Festivals: The Echigo-Tsumari Paradigm
Justin Jesty
4. Shaking the Snow Globe and Changing the City
Melissa Laing
5. Political Art and Metaphoric Exchange
Steven Cottingham
6. Gardens and Grains: Design Activations in the Public Realm
Gretchen Coombs
7. ACT: Activating City Transience
Maggie McCormick
PART III: Social Justice
8. Art as Protest: The Forced Eviction of the Shijhou and Sa’owac Urban Indigenous Tribes in Taiwan
Lu Pei-Yi
9. Participation Problematises: Together in Violence
Anthony Schrag
10. As If: An Embodied Account
Beatrice Catanzaro
11. Quiet Gestures, Gift Exchange, and Public Formations: The Work of D.A.N.C.E. Art Club and Public Share
Lana Lopesi
12. Surviving Institutionalised Care: Accessibility as Social Practice
Carmen Papalia
PART IV: Memory and Identity
13. Suspended Memory: Ebbs and Flows in Attempts at Memorialising in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Jay Pather
14. The Double Act of Flower Time
Raqs Media Collective
15. (In)famous: Contemporary Lessons from History’s Heroes
Jennifer Wingate
16. Public Art, Cultural Identity, and the River of Oblivion
José Quaresma
17. Luanda’s Emotional Geography
Fabio Vanin
18. The Imaginary Institution of Place: Notes on Art-led Place-Making as Aesthetic, Social, and Temporal Engineering
Giusy Checola
19. The Battle of Public Sculptures: On Three Sculptures in Hong Kong
Oscar Ho Hing-Kay
20. Public Art, Gentrification, and the Preservation of Black and BrownUrban Identity: The Case of Little Haiti, Miami – an Interview with Muralist Serge Toussaint
Martin Zebracki
PART V: Ecology
21. Digging in the World: Art and Emergent Forms for Living
Susanne Cockrell
22. Landscape, Eco-Arts Practice, and Digital Technology in the Public Art Realm
Laura Lee Coles
23. Changing Space
Lesia Prokopenko
24. Ensemble Practices
Iain Biggs
25. Public Art Visions and Possibilities: From the View of a Practising Artist
Betsy Damon
26. A Compass Rose for the Anthropocene: New Maps for Old – the Art of Transforming Cultures for Sustainable Futures
Beth Carruthers
27. In the Time of Art with Policy: The Practice of Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison Alongside Global Environmental Policy Since the 1970s
Chris Fremantle, Anne Douglas, and Dave Pritchard
28. The Harrisons’ Practice in the Context of Global Environmental Policy and Politics from the 1960s to 2019: A Timeline
Chris Fremantle, Anne Douglas, and Dave Pritchard
PART VI: Mapping Social Change
29. Mapping Art in the Public Realm 2008–2018
Cameron Cartiere, Leon Tan, and Elisha Masemann (map design, Geoff Campbell)
Biography
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.
