Glossary
Public art master plan
A strategic document setting a public art program’s direction over five to ten years: priority sites, funding, selection processes, equity goals, and care.
The master plan is what separates a city that accumulates artworks from one that builds a collection. Without it, public art happens wherever a capital project or a donor happens to put it; with it, each commission is a move in a larger picture: filling geographic gaps, diversifying the artist roster, pairing art with the infrastructure the city is already building.
Read any master plan by flipping past the vision to the mechanics: who signs off, where the money lives, and who maintains what's built. Plans that answer those three questions get implemented; the rest get admired.