Public art isn’t just decoration

Public art speaks, provokes, interrupts. It challenges who cities are built for, engages with the environment and the audiences, and what gets erased in the name of progress. It exists outside the white walls of galleries and forces a conversation in spaces we pass through every day or it invites you to go on a day trip somewhere else, getting out of your comfort zone and familiar surroundings.

But not all public art is created equal. We should ask: Who commissions it? Who benefits? Who is spoken to — or spoken over? Here, I went to visit Winter Sculpture Park by Gallery No.32 a couple of weeks ago and it was a beautiful community experience, you could run free, play around, and it was open to everyone. It took place at an abandoned golf club. Unfortunately, right when I was posting this, I heard about how some of the works have been vandalised so the Winter Sculpture Park has closed its doors.

Public art must be more than aesthetic filler. It should disturb comfort, reclaim space, and reflect the complexities of the people who live within it. Because cities aren’t just built with bricks. They’re built with meaning. And the meaning is not vandalism.

But not all public art is created equal.

For more public art and a better society, please!