In this first issue of Volume 5, the CAP-Public Art Journal delves into diverse discourses surrounding public art, cultural heritage, and urban revitalization. The collection of articles in this edition encapsulates a scholarly exploration of pertinent themes, incorporating perspectives from various regions and scholarly backgrounds.

The articles featured in this issue contribute substantively to the ongoing academic dialogue surrounding frindge aspects of public art, fostering a deeper understanding of cultural preservation, urban transformation, and the multifaceted role of art in our evolving societies. As we navigate through these scholarly inquiries, we invite readers to critically engage with the content and consider the implications for future research and practice in the field.

The articles presented here offer a diverse array of perspectives and insights into this complex dynamic,  thought-provoking contributions, which underscore the interconnectedness of art, society, and the environment. With a overview from sculpture practise explorations, architectonic heritage, and urban creativity contents, we hope that this collection will inspire further inquiry and dialogue.

These articles seek to discuss and explore the ways in which Sculpture is ontologically constituted in the present, the different historical legacies and the construction of the sculptural imaginary. We invited the scientific and artistic community for a critical and transdisciplinary analysis of the repercussions that the multiple constitutions of what Sculpture is have, not only in the arts, but also outside the artistic sphere.

These articles seek to discuss and explore the ways in which Sculpture is ontologically constituted in the present, the different historical legacies and the construction of the sculptural imaginary. We invited the scientific and artistic community for a critical and transdisciplinary analysis of the repercussions that the multiple constitutions of what Sculpture is have, not only in the arts, but also outside the artistic sphere.

Art is a defining element of urban culture through creative dynamics that reflect territorially embedded mechanisms but also particular social and cultural processes. Public art presents us with the possibility of unmediated social interaction that leads to greater access to the production and use of urban public space. Public art’s presence in the urban space is dynamic and interactive that communicates the complex forms of globalization, cultural hybridity, and plurality in contemporary daily life—where we experience politics. Through a multi-disciplinary lens, that combines urban studies, visual studies, sociology, artistic research, art history and political philosophy, this issue maps the contemporary landscape of public art to capture art’s critical place in the reified politics of the urban space. The aim is not to provide an exhaustive description of the politics of arts in the public spaces but rather to provisionally reconcile the lack of a dialectical perspective in the critical discursive tools of the scholarship on urban public arts.   

Remote interpretation is now digitally distorted. Something considered distant can be equally close, pervasive, a-spatial. With this topic, we intend to open the debate on the tensions caused by the multiple interpretations that the word “remote” in relation with (the complex binomial) “public art”.

Is it a remote feeling that will remain? What path did the remote word take to us, today? Is the remote as a medium here to stay? Will the far, off-center (eccentric), have a component of unexpected surprise?

What scale is remote, sustainable, green, universal, atomic? With this call for articles, essays, reviews of book or exhibitions, we will seek to draw an overview of the present and the past, crossing views (among many others) from the history of art, sculpture, artistic practices, design, architecture and urbanism.

Present in art schools and university curricula, where it engages increasing advanced studies, when talking about Public Art now, we think the time has come to gather, to analyze and to reflect upon what has been done, in order to generate new synthesis, about what this novel, and yet very old domain, has achieved.

Engaging Public Art a progressive ideario (Armajani, 1995), has anything carrying social relevance really changed in our cities? Did public art succeed in catalyzing meaning to our common ground of interaction? How do social sciences assess the outcomes of globalized public space aesthetical gaze and use? And talking about meaning, is public art fostering social inclusion of multi-ethnic minorities and avant-garde thinking or action? As all utopian project, is public art inspiring the creation of new and more rewarding goals to our culture?

Cadernos de Arte Pública (CAP) is an open source, regular scientific publication dedicated to Public Art - a cross disciplinary field, that supports research on the collective production of public space. ‘Narration’ and ‘Memory’ are the themes of the two first issues of CAP, the aim of these issues is to reflect upon the practices and proposals that summon the space and the public sphere into an art work. Either through the concepts and notions associated to them, either through the practices supported by the engagement of the public and its communities.

CAP é uma publicação científica regular de acesso aberto dedicada à Arte Pública — uma área de cruzamento disciplinar, que consubstancia a sua investigação na construção coletiva do espaço público. Narratividade e Memória são os temas dos dois primeiros números dos Cadernos, o intuito destes números é o de refletir sobre práticas e propostas que convoquem o espaço e a esfera pública para as suas realizações. Seja através dos conceitos e noções a elas associadas, seja através das práticas que se suportam no envolvimento de públicos ou comunidades nos seus resultados.

Cadernos de Arte Pública (CAP) is an open source, regular scientific publication dedicated to Public Art - a cross disciplinary field, that supports research on the collective production of public space. ‘Narration’ and ‘Memory’ are the themes of the two first issues of CAP, the aim of these issues is to reflect upon the practices and proposals that summon the space and the public sphere into an art work. Either through the concepts and notions associated to them, either through the practices supported by the engagement of the public and its communities.