Public art and architecture share the same domain. They are a dance between adhering to the artist or architect’s personal intentions impulses, and inclinations, and fulfilling the needs of the community the work is being produced for. A balance between the artist/architect’s subjective sense of “beauty,” (lets call this aesthetic and conceptual ‘harmony’) and their understanding of “goodness” (lets say the communally understood aesthetic and conceptual ‘morality’ of the work) is difficult to reach. Often, the agenda of the artist/architect must submit to the communal good, or the community’s agenda must be sacrificed for the artist/architect to retain a sense of identity in their work.
Through my involvement with the 601 Tully project, I have reached a new connection with my community. As a student at Syracuse University, I feel there is a distinct separation between students studying and living here, and the others who inhabit the city. Classes like 601 really help to pull down these illusory walls that separate the University (which actually represents, along with the hospitals, the main revenue stream for the city) and the rest of Syracuse.
With this new sense of inclusion in my community, I find there is a new passion behind the work I produce. It is not just a masturbatory quest to satisfy my creative impulses, it has a communal purpose that reaches toward a greater goodness.
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