Everything is City. It is stories, moments, colors, and images engraved in our memories imagining a place between real and ideal. However, complexity distorts perspectives of place, and we beg for clarification. The City Between Real and Ideal exhibition is an active investigation into San Antonio’s cultural fabric, undertaken to reach a cohesive understanding of the city and its neighborhoods.
The City Between Real and Ideal opened to the public March 5, 2013 at PASA Studio downtown. It is a creative place-making experience, both emotional and evocative, where citizens can participate in the reclamation of the city as a cultural entity. The public brought real memories, stories, and perspectives as they contributed to the idealization of a recovered San Antonio.
The exhibition presents an investigation by students of UTSA’s College of Architecture about San Antonio’s cultural fabric. This community engagement project, funded by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) “Our Town” grant, invites the public to map their memories and experiences in San Antonio through participation in the UTSA student exhibition. With hopes for every individual to freely express their own idea of place, the opening provided a variety of platforms to experiment, explore, and develop new perspectives on the experience of San Antonio as a larger cultural entity.
The City Between Real and Ideal is part of the Public Space, Public Transit, Public Art series, which is a project funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). In the summer of 2012, the UTSA College of Architecture, in partnership with the City of San Antonio’s Department for Culture and Creative Development and VIA Metropolitan Transit, was selected to receive an “Our Town” grant from NEA.
Participating students
Graduate studio: Sergio Alanis, Peyvand Ali Amiri, James Beyer, Dennise Castillio, Xuhua Cheng, Jose Gallegos, Christopher Haskell, Braulio Hurtado, Sierra Jones, Britta Moe, Ksenia Nation, Laura Shipley, Jose Terrones
Seminar: Jacqueline Arevalo, Jose Besares, Keith Benavidez, Cameron Contrestano, Matthew Guido, Matthew Hallstein, Tommy Horine, Dustin Lovelace, Anna Rich, Miguel Rodriguez, Jacob Silva, Michelyn Smith, Steven Vara, Lucas Watkins, Samuel Wenner, Chase White, Zachary Hlavinka
Public Space / Public Transit / Public Art
UTSA, VIA, City transit project featured as NEA public art case study
NEA awards Our Town grant to UTSA, City of San Antonio and VIA