Mercer Students Partner with Macon Arts Alliance for Public Art Database

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The Mercer Bears are once again putting a pawprint on Macon’s art scene, and this time they’re doing it digitally.

Today, a philosphy class of about 20 students and the Macon Arts Alliance announced the launch of an online public art database.

Jonathan Dye, director of communications at Macon Arts Alliance, said the partnership between Mercer and his organization began over the summer. He and Dr. Creighton Rosental, the chair of Mercer’s philosophy department, began brainstorming ways the students and the nonprofit could work together.

“We decided the best place to start was to gather information about the public art that already existed. So students were charged with digitizing the information and the Macon Arts Alliance is making it available through our existing website,” said Dye.

The students in the “Philosophy of the Arts Class” began working on the project at the start of the spring semester. They took new photographs, made videos, and assessed the current condition of the art. All that information is posted under the “Directories” menu on the Oviations365.com homepage. You can click here to access it directly.

Dr. Rosental told 41NBC public art is one of the few vehicles that can bring a community together.

“The consolidation of Macon-Bibb started me thinking about the community in new ways… Public art is very interesting in that it can both reflect and create a community… I thought it would be valuable for my students to work with the community to develop a public art program for Macon-Bibb,” said Rosental.

41NBC also spoke with one of the students who was a big contributor to the project, Ryan Walters. You can hear from him on the 41NBC News at 11 and at 10 on 41NBC’s sister station, My41.2.