Art in any form can inspire, connect us and enhance our lives.
Throughout the 1.2 square mile of the Midtown district are temporary and permanent art installations showcased through Midtown Alliance’s public art program.
“Here we are fundamentally focused on being a walkable community. We want people to get out of their cars and walk as much as they possibly can. One of the best ways to ensure that is to give them an interesting walk to take,” Director of Urban Design Ginny Kennedy said. “So for us, art is just a key component about adding value to the pedestrian experience in our district.
“We decided to be strategic about looking for opportunities to put art in the public realm so that people are constantly confronted with things that are curious or interesting or provoke questions and thought,” she said.
On the corner of Peachtree Street and 10th Street is one of the temporary pieces created by artist Kevin Box titled “Conversation Peace.” The sculpture is Box’s version of the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” he, like others, grew up playing.
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
“Some people don’t get it and others get it immediately, but that’s the point of a good conversation piece. I really want it to come up on you slowly. I think the best work that I’ve created is like an onionskin where you take layers apart to discover new meaning to it.
“I hope that’s what keeps people engaged in it. That it’s not just something that you walk by and keep going. I want people to do a double take,” the artist said.
While the game is a way for children to resolve issues like who gets the last piece of pizza, Box took that theme onto a higher level.
“As I got older, I realized that I wanted to talk about conflict resolution in a more mature way,” he said. “I had started doing a lot more work with Origami. The Origami crane is known as a symbol of peace in many cultures, and the dove is a symbol of peace and so I thought it would be fun to rearrange the different elements of the game into a format that really highlighted that peace can win.”
Box believes this is one of his greatest works and one of his favorites because it “inspires conversation” and one is able to see the equipoised conflict by the scissors balanced on top of the rock with the smallest element of the sculpture, the peace crane, at the top out of the reach of the shears.
“In a world needing peace, that is obvious to most of us and yet it is not something we talk a lot about so that is really why I do the work that I do,” Box stated. “I believe it’s a really critical moment in history for us to really think about these things and have these conversations, learn to compromise, get along and balance our conflict.”
Conversation Peace will be on display through April 2023.
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