2020 Pérez Prize in Public Art & Civic Design

The 2020 Pérez Prize in Public Art & Civic Design will recognize an artist with a track record of exemplary work created or produced with intention to advance community, civic, or social good by implementing art-based processes and/or projects that lead to positive change in the built environment of a local community. This includes increasing awareness of issues, promoting dialogue, shifting attitudes, promoting healing, motivating action, or improving conditions of equity, access, and inclusion.

The 2020 Prize will be given to an individual artist.  This includes public artists, community-based and socially engaged artists, artist-activists, culture bearers, and teaching artists working in out-of-school community contexts. We recognize that art is often a collective process, and that its full realization rarely rests on a single individual. Artists working in organizational contexts will be considered as well as those working independently. Organizational contexts may include design teams, collaborations, and art groups or collectives.

Because art in civic design encompasses a vast range of forms and genres, for the purpose of the 2020 Pérez Prize in Public Art & Civic Design, we are inviting submissions in select categories: public art, visual arts, community-based artists, artists-in-residencies combined with civic design fields such as planning, transportation, and land use development, artist as part of design teams, hybrids of the aforementioned, and multidisciplinary work in which artistic practice elements are predominant.

The Prize recipient will receive a $30,000 cash award that they can use to continue their pursuit of their creative work aligned with goals of creative transformation of the built environment. The recipient will also receive additional financial support that will enable them to access other national opportunities for further learning as well as dialogue and discussion about their work with national leaders in the arts and other allied fields. These activities will be of mutual value and will be determined jointly with Americans for the Arts, which seeks to create a platform for the recipient to share their knowledge, work, perspective, and experience with Americans for the Arts’ members, stakeholders, and national partners to advance national dialogue and discussion about the key role of public art and civic design.

The Pérez Prize in Public Art & Civic Design honors the philanthropic commitment of Jorge M. Pérez, chairman and CEO of The Related Group, his family and their collective vision and belief in the power of art to transform the design of places and spaces across the United States in ways that add deep and meaningful dimension to our human experience of the built environment.