LIFE IS FUN
Public art has been used as a tool to promote community harmony and urban economic development to attract tourists and investors. （Nick, Maarten & Joke 2012） In the urbanization of today's society, every city seems to be the same. The character of the city has been replaced by rapid, relentless urbanization and commercialization. The social relationships between citizens become tenuous, they lack the opportunity and the way to meet the unacquainted beauty in life. Therefore, the development of public art is important, it adds vitality to people's public space, but also makes the environment with more humanity. (Public Art Network Advisory Council 2014)
Public Art has become a trend and it doesn't just exist in a private space or gallery. It has gradually entered into people's daily life and even has contact with daily life. People as the main body of public art service, the public's understanding of art is various and uncertain, it influences the forms and types of public art. In the eyes of the general citizen, public art is a kind of sculpture that can not be understood. Although the work is placed in a public space, there is still a sense of distance.
Among the artists I know, Liu Ruowang's the wolf is coming embodies the distance between the artwork and the public's understanding, whether the work is placed on grassland or in a city. Its original intention was to remind people of the need to be aware of their surroundings. However, when people come to visit the work, they seem to bask in the pleasure of photographing and riding the sculpture. I think it's an awe-inspiring artwork, not an infrastructure to play with. So I question how public art should be interpreted by the citizen. To a certain extent, public art expresses the artist's inner feelings or thoughts, which contains the artist's experience and understanding of society and daily life.
Public Art emphasizes personal experience and pays attention to personal feelings, so as a designer, how to integrate our own perception of life into the design, therefore, provoke or inspire civic engagement. Give the citizen a shared experience of the artwork and bring a positive change in the community and learn new knowledge or stimulate new perceptions in the enjoyment of the art. (Public Art Network Advisory Council 2014)
Everyone has different feelings about art. The development of public art is conducive to the improvement of citizens'aesthetic ability. As designers, can we create space through art and Lead participants to think and act, therefore, introduce the opportunities to education and learning. Candy Chang's work and Pink seesaw illustrate this aspect of public art. In the process of participating in public art, people also learn and think about how to face the topic of death in a positive way and re-consider of the wall between America and Mexico.
My project is based on people's daily behaviours. The things that people would normally do in their life, such as touching raindrops when it rains, stepping on puddles on the road. I observe these behaviours and apply them to my designs in the hope that they will inspire public participation and encourage people to pay attention to their surroundings. At the same time, introducing the opportunity for education and learning.
In addition, I also try to increase the interaction between people and improve people's aesthetic ability. As well as reduce the distance between people and the distance between human and art.
In Heide project, I combined music from the Art Nouveau period to show the influence of French artists on Heide artists of the time. The paving led the way to Heide 1. To see the work of these artists, the audience may have a preliminary understanding and impression of the place. Since the museum sells the ticket at Heide 2, visitors naturally start visiting with Heide 2 and end with Heide 3 and then they might face the difficulty in finding Heide 1. I don't think it's good for the citizen to connect with the site and learn about the culture from that space. The design also combined with music, which hopes it can increase the vitality of this area, thus promoting people's communication.
In Water project, there is a wall I designed to solicit local paintings of plants growing along the Yarra River. The idea is to make people pay more attention to the plants through such activities. The Eucalyptus Flowers and Eucalyptus capsules on top are also designed for the same purpose.