Public art is fundamentally a social good. From murals to monuments, sculpture to digital projections, public art has the power to transform its environment and to express a community’s character, diversity, and values. Public Art, offered by the Department of Art History & Archaeology, empowers students to “do good” by commissioning new, temporary works of public art that activate sites across campus, positively re-imagining the landscape around us. This course places students at the center of dialogues about issues from climate change to social justice, human and civil rights, and beyond, giving them the opportunity to not only learn about the history of public art, but also to participate in its production.

Public Art provides students a singular and first-hand opportunity, one unique to the University of Maryland, to understand the process of commissioning and installing public art. A General Education course (Humanities; Scholarship in Practice) and an elective for the Creative Placemaking minor, Public Art introduces students to the modern history and civic values of public art, the nature of public space, the politics of representation, and the social and memorial functions of art. A public humanities project rooted in the discipline of art history, Public Art fosters and celebrates creativity. The course exemplifies the innovative, social impact-oriented, and experiential learning that distinguishes a UMD education. In introducing works of public art to campus, students will give new meanings and purposes to shared spaces and reflect back to us a sense of our place and time and of who we are as a community. Public Art affirms the importance of the arts at UMD and attests to the ways in which public art can manifest our institutional mission and serve the public good.