The Future of Public Space and Art: History and Memory

Join us for the first program in a four-part series expanding on the theme Belonging and Beyond, established earlier this year by 2024 AIANY President Gregory Switzer, AIA, NOMA. Belonging and Beyond centers on crucial aspects of human well-being that improve physical and social-emotional health and resilience for individuals and communities. This forum will explore noteworthy solutions that grow out of a robust exchange of interdisciplinary ideas, pointing to the future of public space and public art and their role in social equity.

The series challenges us to discover better design strategies for the public realm that welcome all people. How do we re-envision our public spaces and the public art that inhabits them in ways that are more inclusive and enriching to collective and personal experience for social benefit?

The first program, “History and Memory”, takes inspiration from the words of Dr. John N. Low, professor of History and American Indian Studies at Ohio State University: “History is not truth; its memory, and part of memory is considering what we forgot.”

This program explores the following questions:

• What has been left out of our public spaces and public art installations that requires a fresh perspective?
• How is place-making tied to collective memory?
• How is landscape a witness to our history?

After brief presentations, there will be a moderated audience discussion.

Future Programs in Series:
September – The Future of Public Space and Art: New Public Space Perspectives
October – The Future of Public Space and Art: NYC Public Art Installations
November – The Future of Public Space and Art: New Trends, Craft, Technology

Speakers:
Wendy Nalani E. Ikemoto, Vice President and Chief Curator; New York Historical Society
Renee Kemp-Rotan, Assoc. AIA, NOMA, Principal, studiorotan; Urban Designer and Master Planner
Alan Michelson, Artist, Mohawk Member of the Six Nations of Grand River

Series Moderator:
Ann Marie Baranowski, FAIA, LEED AP, Founding Principal, Ann Marie Baranowski Architects PLLC (AMBA)

About the Speakers:
Wendy Nālani E. Ikemoto, PhD, is Vice President and Chief Curator at the New-York Historical Society, where she leads the museum division. She has curated such exhibitions as Kay WalkingStick / Hudson River School; Nature, Crisis, Consequence; Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy; Dreaming Together: New-York Historical Society and Asia Society Museum; and the award-winning Scenes of New York City: The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection. She oversees the museum’s paintings, sculpture, and drawings collections and has spearheaded major acquisitions, including works by Betye Saar, Augusta Savage, Oscar yi Hou, Kay WalkingStick, Robert Kobayashi, and Livien Yin. She established the institution’s Meet the Curator program and helped to develop and teach in the Master of Arts in Museum Studies program created jointly between NYHS and the City University of New York School of Professional Studies. For International Women’s Day 2024, Ikemoto was profiled in the New York Times. She holds a BA in Art History from Stanford University and an AM and PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University.

Renee Kemp-Rotan is the Principal and CEO of studiorotan a civic design/civic engagement. Her work is devoted to urban design, cultural heritage, and the power of design to impact social change. She has served 10 mayors as the Urban Policy Advisor in major U.S. cities, such as Washington, New York City, Atlanta, and most recently, Birmingham, where she was the Director Capital Projects. Kemp-Rotan also served as Director of Master Planning for Birmingham’s award-winning $22M Railroad Reservation Park and the innovative Birmingham Civil Rights Heritage Trail. Most recently, Kemp-Rotan served as Professional Competition Advisor for The Africatown International Design Idea Competition—one of the largest multi-site competitions in the world, launched Juneteenth 2020. The competition, seed funded by AIA, NOMA and A Better Place Fdn. awarded international winners in 2023. Presently, she is working on a Design Grant from the NEA and masterplans for small Black Towns and Settlements chartered after the Civil War. She is also competing in numerous national competitions on Slave Memorials throughout the US.

Alan Michelson, is an internationally recognized New York-based artist, curator, writer, lecturer and Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River. For over 30 years, he has been a leading practitioner of a socially engaged, critically aware, site-specific art grounded in local context and informed by the retrieval of suppressed histories. Recent exhibitions include the 14th Gwangju Biennale, Enmeshed at the Tate Modern, and Greater New York 2021 at MoMA/PS1. His solo exhibition Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation was presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2019. His diverse practice includes award-winning public art, and Mantle, his permanent, site-specific monument honoring Virginia’s Indian nations was dedicated at the capitol in Richmond in 2018. Michelson was co-founder and co-curator of the groundbreaking Indigenous New York series with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, on whose board he currently serves, and he is a curatorial advisor of the global Indigenous initiative aabaakwad.

Ann Marie Baranowski is the Founding Principal of her eponymous NYC-based architecture firm, Ann Marie Baranowski Architects (AMBA). Her practice is founded on the belief that culture as an investment embedded in the built environment is as essential as the physical infrastructure of our buildings and cities. Offering specialized services in Planning, Public Space + Art, and Architecture, Baranowski focuses on the intersection of public space and public art. Working in the public realm, she has partnered on significant buildings that set a national example for enriching urban life. As Consultant the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Oahu, Hawaii, AMBA established the preliminary public art and design guidelines for the renewal of the main terminal. For the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Baranowski coordinated important public art installations for the Fulton Center and the South Ferry Terminal. As the Museum Architect for the Brooklyn Museum of Art, she directed the planning and implementation of the Museum’s $32M Eastern Parkway Entrance to renew the Museum’s identity.