Every day, passing cars and pedestrians see the Seventh Street underpass, a large area of gray concrete lacking visual adornments.
Now, Bloomington’s Department of Economic & Sustainable Development has made a call to change the structure’s appearance.
Sean Starowitz, assistant director of economic and sustainable development for the arts, said the idea of the project is to work with an artist to create a mural in this area rather than leaving it to whatever art shows up.
“It’s basically just to ensure our art is community-engaged,” Starowitz said.
Starowitz said the project will take under-used spaces in the city and turn them over to artists in communities to allow them to share their stories.
Though the project has an open national call, the city is not necessarily expecting a big-name artist.
Starowitz said it is important to come to terms with what Bloomington is as a city, and the city is looking for an emerging artist.
“You can be 85 and emerging, though, not just 25 and emerging,” Starowitz said.
However, the Seventh Street underpass is just one of the many parts of the mural project the city is launching.
A mural was installed Thursday on Third Street’s median, and various other murals will be created in the coming months. These are just a few existing murals.
Starowitz said the city is getting into more public-private partnerships, where businesses pay a part of the cost for the mural to go on their buildings, which allows for new opportunities.
In addition to the Seventh Street underpass, the city is working on several other projects, Starowitz said.
A mural will go on a South Washington Street building where the city’s utilities department stores archived documents, a community-engaged project with artist Emily Wilson will create murals for mid-intersection signposts called traffic calmers and the mural in Peoples Park will expand as a collaboration with Bicycle Garage, Inc.
The call for an artist is still open for both the Seventh Street underpass mural and the South Washington Street mural until 5 p.m. May 5.
“I’m hoping that we can get some good proposals and get someone to work with the community,” Starowitz said.
