Dear Mayor Mamdani: Here’s Your Art Everywhere

Dear Mayor Mamdani,

We love your love of arts for all, and we swooned when we read that your favorite museum is the art we all see and share together in the NYC subway: the “…beautiful murals and pieces of art across our subway system. And the fulfillment of art as being something for the public to engage with, no matter how much money is in their pocket.”

As Mayor, you can bring arts and artists into all parts of government, for the benefit of everyone who calls the city home and those who visit too, by tearing down the silo for artists and arts organizations. Because: art enhances the places we all want to be and brings people together in new ways.

You can establish a first in the nation local government policy: an Arts Impact Statement for public investments, a simple and low-cost step requiring a public announcement about the possibility of infusing art into our (hard and soft) infrastructure and requiring the same of developers + businesses that get incentives for locating in our place. 

The Arts Impact Statement will be a mindfulness exercise, a reminder that if we add art and design to the things we will have anyway, we can enhance our city of memories and beauty and connection, a place people visit and talk about when they get home.

We can add art to utility covers, bus stops, sidewalks, crosswalks, rec and safety centers, planning processes, community input events, etc — just IMAGINE! The statement doesn’t require any action, but illuminates how easy it will be to add benefits through art.

Artists provide advantages to local government in many ways: 

• Designing accessible and engaging processes for planning, reaching all corners of communities. 

• Illuminating a new view of challenges and unexpected ideas for problem-solving. 

• Reflecting the local culture, history, and values of a place in local infrastructure and program design. 

• Connecting people, places, and opportunities with activities and spaces, creating new relationships and networks.

• Facilitating new partnerships across different parts of government and community, leading to more engagement of residents. 

• Creating new ways of promoting desired social, physical, and economic change, eventually providing the way to systems change.

We are ready to celebrate the contributions of art and artists in our city with you, Zohran!