Dear St. Louis - Sincerely St. Louis
In our proposal for InSITE 2020, Dear St. Louis / Sincerely, St. Louis, we envision a type of community generated letter both to and from the people of this city, located on the southern edge of the Serra Sculpture Park in downtown St. Louis.
Despite heavy pedestrian traffic along the City Garden walkway, this movement does not continue into the Serra Park, because the walkway transitions into a narrower standard sidewalk. However, a brief row of trees creates a footprint for where a broader promenade might continue. We propose to install a new pedestrian friendly fine-gravel walkway, within which we compose a field of colorful super-text based on the statements we collected.
Over time, as people move across the site, the colorful super-text will blend into the surrounding gravel, shifting from discreet words and meaning to a palimpsest of diffuse color and aura. How can an artwork change the way people move through the landscape? Can public art act as a conduit for understanding a place more deeply? Through this project, we hope to create more than an object¬–we aim to create an opportunity, for the public and the civic landscape itself, to respond to each other in an earnest and poetic way.
We set up an installation for Park(ing) Day as a way to engage and gather thoughts, comments, and statements from the St. Louis community, about the St. Louis community.
