Valuing Art in Public Spaces - Liliana Harding and Corina Nani

Public art defines and enhances the world that we inhabit. Here we propose to use its expression in the urban and virtual environment as a mediator for our understanding of how people of various social backgrounds, skill, or disability engage with various public spaces. The article thus reflects on how wellbeing is generated in inclusive public spaces, by drawing on the experience of moving art and culture to the virtual environment. We start from the recent experience of the pandemic and draw on the example of street art – a form of culture designed with the widest public in mind. As new limits have been imposed to the accessibility of traditional forms of culture, public art has been extended and reshaped in the virtual space. This has reopened questions of the value we place in public spaces and to what extent public art can promote inclusivit ...