**REQUEST FOR PUBLIC COMMENT: Public Art for the Central Addition

Posted on 9/8/19 by Arts History

We are seeking input for the design development of a new public artwork for a streetscape in the Central Addition — a LIV District. The artwork will be created by Krivanek+Breaux/ Art+Design for the Broad Street Festival Block, located on Broad Street between 5th & 6th streets in downtown Boise.

In August 2019, BJ Krivanek of Krivanek+Breaux/ Art+Design traveled to Boise to meet with project stakeholders, gather research and provide a public presentation. The below images were preliminary concepts developed during his stay here and point towards potential artwork themes and artwork system forms to further explore.

Identified by Central Addition business owners, residents and citizens, the themes of history, sustainability, district uses and the future have all come to the focus for the content of the artwork. The artists would like to develop more in-depth research and collect public input to inform the artwork’s design, content and meaning and invite everyone to share thoughts, experience, hopes, memories, and desired function and use for the new artwork.

Please review the following process drawings and provide your input for the artists’ consideration. You can weigh in on the following questions or submit ideas for the artwork’s content, form and/or function by leaving a private comment where it says “leave a reply”. Comments will be accepted until October 6, 2019, at midnight (local time).

Do you have personal or family ties to the Central Addition whether through residence, business operation, etc.?
Do you have specific memories of the Central Addition?
Can you recall the names of businesses, institutions or family homes in the Central Addition?
What should be the balance between representing the past/ present/ future of this district?
How do you currently engage with the Central Addition?
Do you have a vision for the future of the Central Addition?
What purpose – functional or symbolic – should the artwork system fulfill?

The Broad Street Festival Block between 5th & 6th streets in downtown Boise looking East.

This is the development Process shown in stages, with permanent/ physical factors in orange and temporal/ ephemeral factors in blue. It all begins with the narratives, histories, dynamics and memories of **Communities**—resulting in artforms that are mapped onto the Site. Artistic urban interventions can activate civic spaces, buildings, infrastructure, systems and streetscapes to enable aesthetic, narrative and historic re-awakening, interactions and unexpected experiences.

Looking at the Festival Block, the street demarcates the original platting of the district, signifying **Continuity** with the past. Set back from the street itself, primary building masses can signify primal themes—**Subcultures**, **Settlement**, **Memory** and **Knowledge**. The wide sidewalks with their electrostatic patterning could suggest **Evolution** and the changes that have occurred over many decades.

These themes can be further expanded, into the **Past**, **Present** and **Future**. For example, **Pioneering > Urbanization, Ethnicities > Lifestyles**. A primal duality exists between what is **Visible** (restored, built anew) and what is Invisible (demolished, forgotten, but remembered).

One approach would be to evoke the **Past** presence of buildings in the Central Addition—commercial, residential or institutional—through a series of column-like forms—suggesting fragments of buildings. Shown as a series of translucent orange structures, they could be inscribed with a taxonomy of words, perhaps job names (past > present), to evoke the human enterprises that have evolved over decades.

Project Background

The Central Addition, a LIV District, has been the focus, for the past two years, of a City-led effort to convene a group of district stakeholders to identify areas of needed investment and collaborate on finding solutions. Topics included transportation, placemaking, sustainability and economic development.

The Placemaking committee was convened to develop strategies and identify locations and projects for cultural investment. The block located between 5th & 6th streets on Broad Street was transformed into a Festival Block which allows for closure of the entire block for events. In the development of the block, the Capital City Development Corporation (CCDC) allocated funding for public art to be included in the festival block streetscaping which will serve as an identifier for the entire district.

The City of Boise’s Public Art Program developed a request for qualifications seeking applications from artists in collaboration with the Placemaking committee. The call to artists was released in fall of 2018 and three artists were identified as finalists for the project. The three finalists convened with the project team and selection committee for a site visit and interview process where the finalists learned more about the project and presented on working practice to the committee.

Krivanek+Breaux/ Art+Design, a Chicago-based artist team, was selected through a competitive process for the project by a selection committee which represented the Central Addition Placemaking Committee, CCDC, the Arts & History Commission, Arts & History Advisory Team and local artists and arts professionals.

**REQUEST FOR PUBLIC COMMENT: Public Art for the Central Addition

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