Title
Bloomberg Public Art Challenge Grant Award (Ordinance S-50348)
Description
Request to authorize the City Manager, or his designee, to accept an additional $350,000, for a total of $1,000,000, for the Bloomberg Public Art Challenge grant award for Fiscal Years (FY) 2023-24 and 2024-25. Under the payment Ordinance S-49550, the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture was already approved by the Council up to $650,000 in Bloomberg Public Art Challenge funds. However, the Office of Arts and Culture was awarded a grant of $1,000,000. The Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture will use the grant funds to support ¡Sombra!: A Celebration of Shade, the initiative identified through the department's grant application. Further request authorization for the City Treasurer to accept and for the City Controller to disburse all funds related to this item.
Report
Summary
The Bloomberg Philanthropies' Public Art Challenge encourages cities to partner with artists, elevating the value of including the creative sector when developing solutions to significant urban issues. The program supports temporary public art projects celebrating creativity, enhancing urban identity, and encouraging public-private collaborations.
The grant funds will support a free, family-friendly festival that introduces a dialogue about Phoenix's urban heat challenges to a new audience. The festival will engage residents with experiential and educational public art installations and activities for children, food, and music to celebrate the community. The festival will feature nine artists or artist teams whose work responds to the urban heat crisis. These works may include shade and cooling structures that create street-scale microclimates, installations that promote the protective beauty, comfort, and cooling power of hats and parasols, and other participatory arts experiences that provoke dialogue about rising temperatures and sustainable heat mitigation tactics. These installations will be featured at the one-day festival in the fall of 2025.
Financial Impact
The grant may not cover 100 percent of project costs. The Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture FY 2023-28 percent-for-art Capital Improvement Program will be used to offset costs not included in the grant funds.
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by Deputy City Manager Inger Erickson and the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture.