Spaces of Encounter
What does public space ask the body to believe about safety, care, and belonging?
Spaces of Encounter explores public spaces across North and Latin America and the Caribbean through the lens of public art. It sees space and place as socially produced, focusing on the ways in which Black imagination from across the diaspora has redistributed power and presence by way of creativity.
“For Black residents navigating environments marked by surveillance, neglect, or misrecognition, aesthetic conditions operate as cumulative exposures that influence how safety, care, and civic participation are felt in the body.” Danicia Monét Malone
Rather than treating public spaces as neutral or universally accessible, Spaces of Encounter operates from the premise that Black spatial experience in the United States has been shaped by exclusion, surveillance, displacement, and resistance. Learning from sites like Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas, and Colombia, where Black presence is celebrated, public, artistic, and spatial encounters are positioned as critical sites where these forces are negotiated, contested, and reimagined. At the center of the exhibition is the research of Danicia Monét Malone, whose Public Art Censuses in Indianapolis, Albuquerque, and Cartagena operate within a Black spatial epistemology that prioritizes presence, visibility, and lived experience as forms of knowledge and expression. Her concepts of cultural literacy in the built environment and the ministry of presence align with scholarship that frames space as a site of care and future-making. Taken from her research, Malone states, “Streets, walls, facades, and public artworks do not merely decorate cities; they condition perception, behavior, and belonging through repeated encounter.”
Through the collection and display of artworks, ephemera, artifacts, and sculptural works,
Spaces of Encounter encourages viewers to ask themselves who is permitted to linger, who is rendered out of place, and how alternative spatial practices can be reimagined and enacted in the urban environment.
–Curator, Alyse Tucker
Contributors
Research
Danicia Monét Malone
Curation
Alyse Tucker
Acquisitions
Greg Rose
Exhibition Strategy
Bryn Jackson
In Addition To
Public Art for All
Peltzer Projects
Isidor Studio
In Good Company
Atsu Kpotufe
1000 Words Gallery
ROKH Research & Design Studio
Rebecca Mercedes
Artists
Aaron Coleman, Alisha Wormsley, Amiah Mims, Bernard Williams, Clayton Hamilton, Curry J. Hackett, Ess McKee, Gary Gee, Germane Barnes, Greg Rose, Ja'Hari Ortega, Jonathan Moore, Kaldric Dow, mk, Rae Parker, Rebecca Robinson, Rimon Guimarães, Shamira Wilson, 18 Art Collective
Supporters
Temple University: Department of Geography | Environment & Urban Studios & the Center for Sustainable Communities, Herbert Simon Family Foundation, Visit Indy, The Harrison Center
Indiana State Museum, Arts Council of Indianapolis, Snack Money, Malone Family Trust