Turn to the river

About the project

While in residence in Terre Haute, we interviewed key stakeholders, community members, students, and campus staff about their goals for the planned infrastructure project, which aimed to connect city residents and campus community to the riverfront through parklets and pathways. These interviews were made visible in a public charette, temporary installations, and in a publication that reflected our observations back to the community to build a sense of ownership and agency amongst groups of residents, connecting them to this new public resource. Public art, public space, and community identity are resources that can celebrate and support the life of a place and it’s inclusiveness. Public art can act as a collective statement of a neighborhood’s identity and values, just as public space can act as a place where neighbors come together and form that identity through shared experience. Art and public space, can both liberate and constrain depending on how they are constructed and who they are for. Community control of and access to these resource is a key to empowerment, which we aimed to communicate through our involvement in the process.