Source: Flickr user Bill Smith
Mary Miss has worked at the intersection of sculpture, public installation and landscape design for decades, and she believes that artists are a resource city agencies aren’t tapping effectively.
Artists can speak to issues of sustainability and equity, she says. They can call attention to often invisible infrastructure and get communities to care. But, she says, “I realized that I couldn’t just go into the city planning office and say, ‘Here’s this great way you can start thinking about artists.’ I needed some examples.”
Now, with evidence under her belt, she’s serving as the first artist-in-residence at New York City’s Department of Design and Construction (DDC). Having visualized historic flooding patterns in Boulder, highlighted the streams of Indianapolis, called attention to the architectural guts of New York’s Union Square subway station and more, Miss is currently developing a framework for other artists to work with and within this city agency…
You might wish to see this episode of Save Our Towns, produced at Virginia Tech, which focuses on the young artists leading a renaissance in Princeton, West Virginia: http://www.saveourtowns.outreach.vt.edu/2017/03/season-3-episode-7/