About: The Public Art Archive™ (PAA™) is a free, continually growing, online database of completed public artworks throughout the U.S. and abroad. By uniting records from public art organizations and artists into one comprehensive resource, PAA aims to provide universal access to the complex stories that characterize public artworks not as static objects, but as dynamic, interconnected keepers of history, context and meaning. PAA’s mission “to make public art more public” has guided the program’s growth into the largest active source of public art information in the world. PAA’s interactive maps and advanced searching capabilities make your public artworks more visible and discoverable to local and online audiences. 

The essential space for discovering and exploring public art, the Public Art Archive (PAA) invites artists and organizations to contribute completed public art projects to our online public engagement portal. Contributing to PAA is always free. When you contribute your public art projects to the Public Art Archive, your portfolio is discoverable on the largest centralized source of public art information in the world, increasing the accessibility and visibility of your work.

Timeline: This project is ongoing and has no deadline for submissions. The PAA team will make eligibility determinations regarding when submissions to this call will be imported into the Public Art Archive public engagement portal. Please read eligibility criteria carefully.

Note: This is not a RFQ/RFP, roster, or commissioning project call. This call is for the inclusion of your completed project(s) in a digital engagement portal of public artworks.

Contact: Please email PAArchive@westaf.org for any questions. For collections administrators or artists who would like to contribute multiple artworks, please see our submission guide or email us.

If your work is already in the Public Art Archive and you would like to make edits, please use the Public Art Archive contact form or email the team at PAArchive@westaf.org

Application Requirements

Each applicant may submit up to 20 artworks via this call. If you have more than 20 artworks to contribute, contact the PAA team at PAArchive@westaf.org.  

For each artwork you may submit up to 1-7 media files. This may include 7 images, as well as audio and/or video files. We encourage all contributors to submit at least 3 images per artwork: public art is best represented with multiple images to show varying perspectives and the context of the artwork.  If you have youtube or vimeo links, please include them in the supplemental information field. Please note: you may submit additional content by emailing PAArchive@westaf.org.

For each public art project, you will be asked to provide the following artwork information on the application form:

• Public Artwork Title
• Alternate or Popular Title
• Creator/Artist(s)
• Creator/Artist(s) Website
• Date Commissioned/Date Installed
• On view dates, if the work was temporarily sited
• Address and Geographic Location (complete street address required; georeference data if available)
• Site Placement (chosen from word list)
• Commissioning Agency/Collection
• Owner (if not commissioning agency)
• Artwork Type (chosen from word list)
• Material(s)
• Artwork Description
• Measurements
• Photo Credit
• Optional: Project Budget
• Optional: Funding Source (chosen from word list)
• Optional: Inscription
• Optional: Awards or Recognitions
• Optional: Supplemental information
• Optional: Maker-Supplied Identity Information (for internal use only)

Eligibility Criteria

The Public Art Archive accepts submissions of completed public art projects from artists and commissioning agencies. PAA defines public art as any work of art that is (or was at one time, if a temporary work) situated in a location that is accessible or viewable by the general public at no cost. Works of art that were commissioned and/or gifted by corporations, museums, educational institutions, private parties, and other entities may also be eligible. New media, performative, rotating, and portable works may be eligible if they meet the commonly known definition of public art or civic art and are/were accessible for public viewing free of charge. Gallery art and art exhibited inside galleries and museums is typically not eligible. If you have questions about your artwork’s eligibility, please contact the Public Art Archive team at PAArchive@westaf.org