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Resumo

Temporary public art installations are an increasingly common sight in industrialized cities. This reflects local government and civic organizations' interest in the potential social and economic benefits of art, as well as artists and curators' interest in engaging 'the public.' Yet little systematic social‐scientific attention is paid to the ways that public art, once installed, affects its site, and the ways that people interact with it. How can these artworks be understood as 'public'? What kinds of urban publics do they produce? Approaching these questions as an urban anthropologist, I analyze ethnographic material from two pieces. One of these pieces was Kim Morgan's 2006 work Time Transit, a mixed‐media installation on an operational city bus in Regina, Saskatchewan, which invited passengers to co‐produce the art via text messages. The other piece was Situated Cinema–created by Tom Evans, Craig Rodmore, and Will Vachon in 2012–a demountable micro‐cinema that moved to different sites in Winnipeg, Manitoba, projecting short experimental films about cities. Analysis of the 3,960 text messages sent during Time Transit and interviews and observations conducted at Situated Cinema shows that each installation intervened in the socio‐spatial dialectic of its sites in original and sometimes unanticipated ways. Moreover, each produced and mediated public dialogue in a distinct sense and to different degrees. I conclude by reflecting on what an ethnographic approach can reveal about the publicness of public art—and what it might leave out.

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