Public / Art Projects
-
(2022-)St. Louis Division
St. Louis Division
public art collective—with co-founders Aaron Owens & Allana Ross
St. Louis Division develops creative projects to illuminate, interrogate, and challenge hidden social and environmental geographies in the St. Louis region and beyond.
Our projects:
Superfun! (2022-)...is a website that measures, documents, & promotes the substantial everyday fun facilitated by the widespread production of toxic industrial products, & by the disposal and remediation of ultra-toxic chemical and nuclear wastes. You can visit the site to learn about Superfun!'s goals & the How-Fun Ranking System, & to read info-packed Fun Stories for Superfun! sites in the St. Louis region.
If You Need To Use the Art (2023)...is a tour of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation museum in St. Louis that ignores the gallieries entirely, and instead visits 5 "artworks" in the Pultzer’s permanent collection—an air filter, a toilet, and our W9s included—that speak to the powerful and often inequitable social, political, economic, and environmental networks that shape the museum, the city, and how you experience both. Watch our 5-min video.____________________
-
(2004- )Los Angeles Urban Rangers
Los Angeles Urban Rangers
public art collective (co-founder)
The LA Urban Rangers develop guided hikes, campfire talks, field kits, & other interpretive tools to spark creative explorations of everyday habitats, in our home megalopolis & beyond.
Our projects have included Pop-Up Water Bar & Happy Hour, L.A. County Fair, Interstate Road Trip, & our 2 Public Access 101 initiatives: Malibu Public Beaches, which offered safaris to the elusive public Malibu coast; and Downtown LA, with “LA River Ramble, “Corporate Peaks & Meadows hike,” & “Critical Campout” events.
LAUR videos
- Public Access 101: Downtown LA (3 min)
- Malibu Public Beaches (6 min)
Sample field tools
Rangers in Downtown LA (L to R)—Therese Kelly, Nick Bauch, Sara Daleiden, Ron Milam, Jenny Price (photo: Joe Bruns) 
LA River Ramble with Ranger Ron (photo: Harvey Opgenorth) 
LA River Ramble guide 
LA River Ramble permits 
Rangers in Malibu (co-founders, L to R) Therese Kelly, Sara Daleiden, Emily Scott, Jenny Price (photo: Tom Queally) 
Malibu Public Beaches, public beach potluck (photo: Rosa Morrow) 
Interstate Road Trip, Ranger Emily with field kit 
LA County Fair guide -
(2013- )Our Malibu Beaches
Our Malibu Beaches
(co-created with Ben & John Adair)
A phone app, with all the info you need (a lot!) to find & enjoy the stunning 20 miles of Malibu beaches that are lined with private development—where the accessways are, where the dry-sand public easements are, where to park (join the volunteer Orange Cone Relocation Squad if you wish), & which signs you can smile at and ignore.
Download the app:
-
(2019- )The Homestead Project
The Homestead Project
Welcome to the Jennifer Prince childhood home, in the affluent St. Louis suburb of Clayton (Kevin Kline grew up down the street!).
And please enjoy our docent program, about the formative adventures of this “Clayton Notable” environmental writer—which includes a helpful simultaneous translation, with concomitant stories about industrial toxics, nuclear waste mismanagement, and serial displacements of African American communities.
Initial program: Art + Landscape STL, G-CADD galleries, Granite City IL
-
(2013- )Nature Trail
Nature Trail
(design by Jennifer McKnight & Dana Turkovic)
An interpretive nature trail at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis County—with 15 stops, at the power lines, parking lot, bathrooms, trash cans, gift shop, & other spots that connect you to abundant places in St. Louis & beyond, & that powerfully shape this wondrous landscape and your enjoyment of it.
Permanent commission, developed originally for The River Between Us show
-
(2017- )SHTEAM
SHTEAM
A Yiddish-inflected monologue in defense of the humanities—& of their essential importance & powers for tackling climate change & all other urgent 21st-century crises.
While we’re at it, a critique & explanation of the STEM-fetishizing dismissal of the HUMANities as urgent ways of knowing in the ANTHROpocene (aka the Fercockticene).
Developed originally for the Ecotopian Toolkit conference, Penn Program in Environmental Humanities
-
(2014-2015)Play the LA River
Play the LA River
Project 51 arts & humanities collective (co-founder)
Salsa, picnic, bocce, poker, fish, Tai Chi, magic tricks.
A come-one come-all invitation to play on the banks of the L.A. River—& to explore, enjoy, share, reclaim, & reimagine the long-notorious waterway as a grand civic space that can green & connect communities across the L.A. area.
Ideally while resisting gentrification & displacement of low-income communities (though that very much remains to be seen).
Complete with: a 52-site playable card-deck guide to the 51-mile river; and a year-long series of events, in collaboration with other artists, NGOs, public agencies
-
(2001-2016)L.A. River Tours
L.A. River Tours
Walking, bus, & carpool (my favorite) tours of America’s most famous forgotten river.
With lots of talk about about the central importance of L.A.’s river to the region’s past & present—& about the ongoing, cast-of-thousands public revitalization efforts to create a more sustainable & (one can hope & dream) equitable future.
Also with lots of concrete, WMDs (weird mutant ducks), shopping carts, beautiful new parks, black-necked stilts, history, hope, vision, & great taco & raspados stops along the way.
Partners-in-crime thru the years: urban designer Alan Loomis, Friends of the LA River, Hidden LA
Photo: Rei Yoshioka 
Photo: Rei Yoshioka 
Photo: Catherine Hollis 
Photo: Eva Castringius 
Photo: Bruce McDermott -
(2004)28 Private Property Signs for a Public Beach
28 Private Property Signs for a Public Beach
(co-created with David Kipen & Jonathan Nazareth Zabala)
Included: “Our tax shelters at work,” “Beach open dusk to dark,” “The ecosystem in front of my $6 million estate is too fragile for you to walk on,” “Zuma’s right over there—what more do you people want?”
Desiged originally for the gardenLAb show, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena.
LA Weekly cartoon version:
