#ArtUnitesCbus at Denison University

Denison University is hosting public art from the Art Unites Cbus project for the month of April, 2021. Eight murals are installed throughout the campus.

Three murals are installed as a cube near Edbaugh Laboratories: “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For” by Rosa Rumora, Untitled by Art by Scaeffer, “I Don’t Know You But I Love You,” by Hakim Callwood.

Two murals are installed on Herrick Hall: “Let Our Children Grow Up” by Promise McLeod & Peter Franz, and a piece that is untilted/artist unknown.

Two murals are installed near the Bryan Arts Center: “BLM in Flowers” by Caeleigh Featherstone and a piece that is untitled/artist unknown.

One mural is installed inside the Mitchel D. Eisner Center for the Performing Arts: An untitled piece by Jade Davis.

The Art Unites Cbus project came about as a solution to an immediate challenge, how to turn broken windows into messages of support for Black Lives. In late May of 2020, protests broke out in response to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police. In downtown and surrounding areas windows were broken and boarded up. As the protests continued and the conversation around the legacy of racism in American deepened, Columbus businesses and organizations hired artists to paint the temporary plywood with messages that ranged from calls for justice, humanity and hope to expressions of Black pride, beauty and excellence. The popularity of the murals created a demand that they be preserved and exhibited once they came down. A committee was formed, the Greater Columbus Arts Council coordinated preservation, storage, and documentation of the murals, and then the committee curated the panels into groupings for exhibit. The first exhibition of this temporary public art included nine sites and was exhibited from November 2020 through March 2021. Art Unites Cbus is now a component of a larger initiative that is incorporating public art in its plans, Deliver Black Dreams.

The Art Unites Cbus exhibitions are supported in part by AEP Foundation, Huntington, The Ohio State University, the city of Columbus, Cardinal Health and Grange Insurance.

Dates

Installed: Mar 29, 2021