Inspirational Public Art Project, Dialogue

I received an interesting email this morning from Mike Garibaldi Frick. Mike is a professional Artist and the creative and guiding force behind the inspirational public art movement, EvolveArts - his life's work and ongoing creative vehicle. In 1990 Garibaldi Frick formed EvolveArts (formally Scultura) to bring provocative sculpture projects out of galleries and museums and into open, public spaces for everyone to enjoy and interpret.

Mike Garibaldi created The Dialogue Project tour. The Dialogue public art installation consists of nine, 5 X 7 foot freestanding screens covered with thousands of inspiring, insightful quotations from famous, and not so famous, people throughout history. Some of the 18 main themes addressed include: friends & family, wisdom, life, community and love. The first installation took place in San Francisco's Union Square on January 12, 2005 and traveled to cities throughout the United States through 2006 including Washington, DC last year on May 13th, 14th & 18th, 2006. Mike is taking a break during 2007 to finish a Dialogue documentary and plans a big 2008 national tour.

Now my question, did anyone see this public art project at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center last year? How did you hear about it being in DC?

From Mike's Dialogue Project website he write's about his experience with the DC arts coverage...

Some of the Media Coverage We Received (or not)
"We were completely ignored by the DC media. Even the local weekly Entertainment paper wouldn't return our calls. It seems that a person really needs to have inside connections or be part of the political structure there to get any coverage. For instance, the only arts coverage we saw in the daily papers was about TV network battles, arts funding wrangling and current Smithsonian exhibits. DC felt like a town where..."

Now how about that! We have a public art project about "dialogue" showing in DC and the arts media doesn't talk about it? I for one, would have liked to have seen the exhibition and come to my own conclusions.
You can check out the dialogue Project here.

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The project sparks meaningful discussions among viewers, gets people reading, helps viewers take a leisurely break during the day and inspires personal reflection.

Dialogue as a public service to:

* Generate personal inspiration and reflection
* Enliven our public spaces
* Promote literacy and education awareness
* Create new avenues and audiences for public art
* Provide the mass media with a positive, inspirational story
* Help advance communication between people of diversebackgrounds
* Spark meaningful, deep conversations among viewers

If you have any ideas about where Dialogue can show in your community and/or sponsor opportunities, please contact Mike Garibaldi at Spark@DialogueProject.net. They are currently putting a 2008 tour itinerary together. They can set-up the project and/or show the documentary in conjunction with existing arts, cultural and film festivals or university arts programs.