NEA Our Town

CALL FOR ARTISTS

Pillar + Utility Box Public Art

The Walls Project is seeking artists to create a coordinated series of public art designs for concrete I-110 support pillars and utility boxes within the I-110 corridor in Baton Rouge.

The Stitch Line is a creative placemaking initiative that recognizes the historic impact of interstate construction on Baton Rouge’s Black neighborhoods while imagining the infrastructure’s future as a place of connection, mobility, culture, and community life.

The project will combine public art, wayfinding, bike infrastructure, park-and-ride amenities, and pedestrian improvements to transform the space beneath I-110 from transportation infrastructure into a connected civic landscape.

Submit for NEA Our Town RFQ

Artistic Direction:
How can we acknowledge what I-110 disrupted while imagining what it can connect?

Artists should interpret the tension between these two realities:

I-110 as a divider:
The interstate changed neighborhood boundaries, disrupted established routes, altered access to businesses and institutions, and contributed to the physical separation of historically Black communities.

I-110 as a potential connector:
Today, the space beneath and around the interstate can become a place that reconnects people to downtown, cultural institutions, parks, markets, trails, businesses, transit, and one another.

The artwork should hold both truths.

It should not romanticize the interstate or reduce the story to loss. Likewise, it should not erase the history in favor of generic beautification.

We are interested in art about transformation: from division to connection, from infrastructure to public space, and from interruption to possibility.

A coordinated visual system

The project will contain several layers of intervention:

Pillar murals will provide the primary interpretive artwork. They should respond to the scale and repetition of the highway structure and create a visual sequence as people move through the corridor.

Utility box murals/digital artwork will provide smaller, more detailed opportunities for storytelling, neighborhood identity, historical interpretation, and contemporary community expression.

Wayfinding signage will provide functional information directing people toward park-and-ride facilities, bicycle routes, pedestrian connections, downtown amenities, cultural destinations, markets, parks, and other community resources.

Ground and landscape improvements will help establish pedestrian and bicycle movement through the space.

The components should feel related without becoming repetitive.

Design Parameters

Pillar artwork should generally be limited to the lower seven feet of the existing concrete columns unless otherwise approved.

Artists will work with existing infrastructure. No structural modifications, drilling, cutting, attachments, or alterations to the highway structure will be permitted.

Existing:

Signs
Bollards
Benches
Concrete structures
Curbs
Drainage infrastructure
Transportation infrastructure

will remain in place.

Artwork must accommodate these existing conditions.

Designs should also consider the dramatically different viewing conditions beneath an interstate: pedestrians may encounter the work at close range while cyclists, motorists, and transit users may experience it at speed.