Mandarin Parks Interactive Public Art

Losco Regional Park and Chuck Rogers Park in the Mandarin Area in Jacksonville, Florida, will be enhanced by new interactive works of public art. Both parks have several soccer fields and are regularly visited by soccer league players and their families as well as the general public seeking outdoor activities. The artwork can be a single sculpture or an array of sculptural active elements that will engage park users of any age, but especially school age children, in active play. Ingenious, playful, and colorful 3D sculptures should spark curiosity and invite interaction with activities that relate to sport training, such as enhancing agility, foot or hand-eye coordination, target practice, competition, and fitness. The Artist Selection Panel may select different proposals for each park and reserves the right to divide the budget accordingly.

Artists will be required to meet with community members and stakeholders, including members of the Elite Soccer Academy league and park users to gather information and provide a design concept that responds to this particular community. Community engagements will include site visits and surveys developed by the Cultural Council Public Art program for the purpose of defining the final vision and exact location for the art at each park. The selected artist or team will prepare a schematic design proposal with sufficient detail to move directly into construction documents after a brief design development phase.

The total budget established to be distributed between both projects is $100,000. The budget includes all costs to the artist: artwork proposals, artwork itself, mounting materials, site preparation and installation, artwork shipping, insurance, travel, and sales tax. Artists must be over 21 years old, not a student in a formal degree program, and have been creating and installing public art for more than three years. A minimum of 4 and maximum of 8 images and up to 2 videos (120 seconds each) of completed projects are required. The application deadline is February 28, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. MST. Artist notification is scheduled for March 9, 2022, with site visits and community engagement during March 21-31, 2022, and installation anticipated for September-December 2022.