Public green space is an important factor in urban life- it is a respite from the concrete and asphalt environment of the city, and functions as a place to gather, relax, play, and experience a bit of nature. The Public Green project creates new meaning for these spaces, illustrating the complex and symbiotic relationship between the development of parkland and the growth of the city.

This mapping of publicly accessible green space in the city and environs is distributed throughout the public transit system, inside city buses and in transit shelters. Cartographic and textual information shows the distribution of green space across LA, locating public parks and giving the viewer an understanding of historical and current practices of acquisition, creation and maintenance of public green space in regards to Los Angeles economics, real estate practices, and history.

Public Green poses questions about ownership of land, and suggests the transfer of property from private to public use. Viewers are asked to rethink their local landscape, and to physically transform their environment. Through tactics of information distribution along existing transportation networks, the viewer becomes an agent of mobility and change. The information in the Public Green posters can be used geographically, to find parks locally or near daily commutes; or as a basis for community advocacy. Maps can be used for wayfinding or political means- this project suggests both functions.

-Lize Mogel, 2001/2002 info [at] publicgreen [dot] com