“Vaquero”, by Luis Jimenez
The Houston Arts Alliance has launched an online map helping people find and view hundreds of public artworks across the city.
The Civic Art Map website launched last week, offering a searchable, regularly updated database that currently has 873 artworks created by more than 500 artists.
The map details a wide variety of public art, from murals and sculptures to the artistic elements embedded within city owned buildings.
“It provides a really great way for the community to see the assets of the city and to see the objects that inherently belong to them as residents of the city of Houston,” said Grace Zuñiga, Houston Arts Alliance’s chief programming officer, who helped lead the project while serving as director of civic art.
The $23,000 project took several years, Zuñiga said, partly due to the challenge of organizing and verifying data on the city’s art collection.
The map is powered by the city’s art collection management system. Each artwork is geo-tagged within the system and is automatically placed on the map. The website refreshes nightly, ensuring new artworks appear almost in real time.
The map doubles as both an educational resource for residents and as a way for visitors to explore the city.
“It promotes cultural tourism and gives visitors a way to experience Houston through its art,” Zuñiga said.
I love this. I want to take a closer look at what’s in this thing, so I can plan some day trips. I’m excited to share this with visitors so they can find fun and free things to do around town. Kudos to Grace Zuñiga, the Houston Arts Alliance, and everyone else for coming up with this.