Preparing to serve the residents at Tent City 3.
Art in Public Spaces (BCUSP 191 A), an art elective course at the University of Washington Bothell campus focused on public art as a vehicle for social change. This quarter students explored the complex issues surrounding homelessness as inspiration for public art sculpture proposals . They were given two call to artists as the foundation to develop one group poster project and an individual sculpture proposal.
The students first developed posters in small groups to familiarize themselves with the public art process and to create the advertising for the public presentations of their final projects. This website contains both their group poster projects and their final, individual sculpture proposals.
The students experienced guest lecturers from a number of local non-profit organizations that provide homeless populations in King County with a variety of services (SHARE/WHEEL, Greater Seattle Cares, Women in Black), as well as heard the personal stories of a homeless gentleman currently living out of his truck and a woman who was homeless for several years and now spends a great deal of her time working to raise awareness and improve conditions for the homeless in this state. The students also served a meal to the residents of Tent City 3 (a self governing homeless encampment) and took a tour of the facility to learn about the living situation as well as the functioning of a self governing homeless community. The students brought with them donations that resulted from a campus wide donation drive as well as a personal donation. They also had the privilege of hearing the public artists Clark Wiegman (his website Artifacture) speak about the Homeless Remembrance Project in Seattle–the first permanent public homeless memorial in the world as well as the accompanying Leaves of Remembrance Project.
We welcome and encourage your comments and thoughts on the student work.
To see work from other classes please visit:
To see previous class projects, please visit:
Art in Public Spaces 2012: exploring, innovating, designing, creating
Pubic Art and Social Change 2014: public art as a catalyst for social and environmental change
Art in Public Spaces Spring 2013 