Public art engages the artist with the concerns contexts and needs of the public domain. It lends an arts practice methodology and the skill set of the artist to meaningfully co-create within public spaces/places--whether physical, political, social or virtual--in order to foreground latent, emerging or actual meaning. At its best, Public Art creates novel, artistically driven solutions within the ambiguity of contesting meanings inherent in a vital, lived-in civic realm.  Public space is where the life of a democratic society reflects, builds and contests social representations of key concern. To that end, a public art practice embraces the inherent ambiguity and reflects that discourse back in the form of appropriate artistic production. 

These works exemplify my understanding of one such approach. They evolved from an iterative dialogue with various community interests on an issue central to them.  In this case, wild rice (Manoomin to the Anishinaabe peoples, and Zizania Palustris to the Western scientific community) ... should Manoomin be appreciated as a sentient being, demonstrating prophesy fulfilled, or simply as an object in the world in service to scientific curiosity.