ABSTRACT
Public art has changed from a statue in the town square to an interactive process that takes place in storefronts and row houses and practitioners of public humanities can learn from that transformation. The essay briefly traces the history, and gives examples, of social practice art and then proposes community-based, interactive, collaborative, and socially conscious public humanities. In the process, the essay suggests that the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities at Brown University has something to learn from nearby New Urban Arts, an after-school arts mentoring program in Providence, Rhode Island.
