UNIVERSITY NEWS - OCTOBER 2003

MEDIA CONTACT: Stacia Smith
561-297-2971 or ssmith@fau.edu

FAU Presents "Creative Work in the Public Realm"

Lecture explores ways public projects can address aesthetics and serve local communities

BOCA RATON (October 15, 2003) - Florida Atlantic University presents the lecture, "Creative Work in the Public Realm," with Michael Singer, Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholars chair. The lecture will be held on Monday, October 20 from 4 - 5:15 p.m. in the Arts and Letters Building, Room 242, FAU's Boca Raton Campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Singer will look at public projects, such as public buildings, housing, parks and waste plants and address ways that they can respond to concerns about social and environmental problems. One example is a power plant that protects the land, celebrates natural systems and is accessible to the community. Another is a neighborhood park that celebrates indigenous landscape and restores the water table. He will describe how his projects have used teams of multi-discipline professionals such as engineers, architects, social anthropologists, scientists and historians.

A leader in public art, Singer has received numerous awards including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His sculptures, drawings and photographs are part of public collections in the United States and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Humlebaek, Denmark and the Australian National Gallery, Canberra.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, Singer's work opened new possibilities for outdoor and indoor sculpture and contributed to the definition of site specific art and the development of public places. In 1993, The New York Times chose Singer's design of a massive waste recycling and transfer station in Phoenix as one of the top eight design events of the year.
For further information on this lecture, call 561-297-0035. This presentation is part of the Ph.D. Colloquium Series. To find more information on the series, log on to the website at http://www.publicintellectuals.fau/colloq_Fall2003.htm.
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