May 8, 2019
Art and the city
Around Town
By Dr. Gloria J. Johnson. Pg. 2
Special Section
Summer Camp Guide. P.6
Features
The Downtown STL Public Arts Initiative announced its InSITE 2020 project to commission public art from artists who possess a connection to St. Louis.
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Downtown STL Public Arts Initiative launches a project to commission public art from artists who possess a connection to St. Louis By Charlotte Beard In March, the Downtown STL Public Arts Initiative announced its InSITE 2020 project to commission public art from artists who possess a connection to St. Louis. The art will be displayed from one month to one year. The initiative was kicked off with two informational sessions and two walking tours of Downtown St. Louis in the areas that will be impacted by the project. The project will be bounded by Convention Plaza, Tucker, 4th Street, and the north side of Market Street. The deadline for artist proposals is May 19. “The Downtown STL Public Art Initiative is a new collaboration between the Regional Arts Commission, Downtown STL which is the downtown community improvement district, and Explore St. Louis,” shared Meredith McKinley who was one of the presenters at the April 24 informational session.
McKinley, an associate of Via Partnership LLP, further shared with attendees that the collaborators came together approximately two years ago when they recognized an urgency for public art in Downtown St. Louis. “The conversation around public art in downtown needed to be elevated and moved forward,” stated McKinley. “So, the first thing they did was develop a downtown public art master plan. The partnership worked with an advisory group to put that together.” McKinley shared that public input from participant workshops, focus groups, and surveys filtered through the Regional Arts Commission helped form the creation of the Downtown STL Public Art Master plan. The 94-page plan can be downloaded as a PDF from the Regional Arts Commission’s website at https://racstl.org. McKinley stated, “We also identified
overarching goals I think are important to keep in mind because they set the framework for the InSITE project.” One of the goals is to encourage walking and exploration of downtown’s streets. “It seemed like (with) every conversation we had someone talk about the experience of walking downtown or a connection between different parts of downtown – how you can’t get people to walk from the library to the Blues Museum.” Another goal is to enable people to see downtown as a place of possibility. McKinley stated, “To me that’s really part of the spirit of InSITE 2020 – the idea that if you have an ‘idea’ as an artist, then downtown is a place where you can realize that idea. This is an activity reinforcing the identity of downtown. It’s where we come See ‘ART’ page 2
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