Role of Public Art in Urban Environment

The mural art project in Yogyakarta City provides a unique example of the role that public art can play in urban setting. The artist-initiated project involved a range of community groups to participate. However, the policy on public art in urban environment remains absent. At the same time the literatures are not conclusive on how the public art can benefit urban environment as well as the citizens. In-depth information does not exist on how the public art can improve the quality of urban environment, especially in the local context of Yogyakarta City, since little research has been conducted on the subject in the field of urban management. This research aims to explore the impact of public art on urban environment within the context of Yogyakarta City. It translates into the question of how public art affects the urban environment in Yogyakarta City. To answer the question, first what public art is needs to be defined; and then how citizens perceive the public art and its impact on urban environment. The citizen participation in public art and the prospect of public art in urban context are then discussed. The conceptual model developed from the literature includes public art, urban environment, perception, participation and prospect of public art in urban context. This research is exploratory in nature and using a single case study and survey strategy. A mix of quantitative data using statistical analysis and qualitative analysis is used in this research. The grounded theory approach is also used to develop the research design. The research finds from the questionnaires that there are multidimensional impacts of public art in urban environment. The perceived benefits of public art either in physical, social or cultural domains suggest that public art is very prominent in creating livability and sustainability of the city. However, further critical studies on public art are still needed to really understand the functional and artistic aspects of public art in the context of urban environment.