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The District 1 San Antonio City Council Office and the San Antonio Arts Commission are seeking suggestions for public art in the Pride Cultural Heritage District along Main Avenue.
The district was formally designated last year to recognize the LGBTQ+ history of the Main Avenue corridor. Long known as The Strip, Main Avenue has been home to LGBTQ bars, businesses and gathering places for decades and serves as the route for the annual Pride parade.
Nearly a year after its designation, the district is moving to the next phase: adding public art. On Friday, the District 1 City Council office and a member of the San Antonio Arts Commission will host a public feedback session to gather ideas for artwork and art installations in the district.
“I really want to encourage everybody to envision what they want to see, what that Pride Cultural (Heritage) District would look like when it comes to the art installations, " said arts commissioner Lynz Andrews, who was appointed by the mayor to the commission. “Should there be a sculpture? Should there be a park bench or something designed to represent the community?”
The public meeting will be held Friday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Aye Que Chula, 1503 N. Main Ave.
The District 1 office is also seeking resident input through a survey on what types of artwork they would like to see in the district. The survey takes about five minutes to complete and can be found here.
Earlier this year, a community-funded rainbow crosswalk installed in 2018 was removed after the state threatened to withhold highway funding from cities that maintained political or ideological roadway artwork. Following the removal, the city painted rainbow designs along two blocks of sidewalk.
Pieces of the crosswalk were preserved and used as a temporary exhibit built by UT San Antonio archivist Melissa Gohlke at the San Antonio Public Library in June.
Councilwoman Sukh Kaur said some proposed public art projects could include murals, though locations have not yet been determined.
“Since this is going to come from our office's art budget, our infrastructure budget, we wanted to focus this on murals, and our hope is to be able to fund three different murals at spaces on the strip,” said Kaur.
Kaur also encouraged area building owners to reach out if they are willing to provide space for a potential mural.
“We would talk to the business owners to create [a memorandum of understanding] to then have artists respond to the themes that were represented from the survey and say we would like to present this as an idea,” Kaur said.
