Public Art: What is it Good For?
with Stein Wexler
“if social agencies have failed, then art is obliged to step in”
Nato Thompson, Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art: 1991-2011
How can we leverage public art as a tool for social change and community sustainability?
In this conversation we’ll discuss not only what public art is and what public art can do, but also look at some specific projects in Durham, North Carolina and Berlin, Germany. We’ll explore the process of developing public art projects, and how socially-engaged public art can answer a social need, pose a question, or trouble received notions.
Join us to examine public art as a tool for civic engagement and truth-telling.
R. Stein Wexler (she/her/hers) is an artist and urban planner.
She is currently developing public art projects confronting Germany’s notorious bureaucratic immigration process and uncovering the layers of troubling history beneath one of Berlin’s historic Stasi office buildings. Previously, Wexler curated public art interventions in downtown Durham, North Carolina USA.
Born and raised in California, Stein currently lives in Berlin, Germany where she is an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellow hosted by Berlin’s Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (Center for art and Urbanism).