If you attended ICMA’s 100th annual conference in Charlotte/Mecklenburg County last September, chances are you “left your mark” on the local community by participating in the Host Committee’s participatory public art project. Since the opening of ICMA’s first permanent staff office in Washington, D.C., in 1990, there has been an informal tradition for each annual conference local host committee to present a piece of art or craft to ICMA to adorn the association’s D.C. office in a meaningful way. The 100th Annual Conference host committee took the opportunity to build on this tradition by engaging the community of conference attendees in a collaborative process to create a work of public art that would be installed in the local community and serve as a lasting commemoration of the conference and a tribute to the profession of local government management.

The 100th Annual Conference Community Art Project allowed conference attendees to use stamps to create impressions on clay tiles which, following the conference, were glazed with color and incorporated into three mosaics by artist Leslie Scott. The mosaics, inspired by the adaptive, enduring and colorful Sourwood tree, represent the qualities of ICMA and professional public management: promise, longevity, and legacy. The finished mosaics have now been installed in the lobby of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center, which is home to many of the administrative offices for both the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County agencies.

Check out pictures of the participatory public art project and final installation, and read the blog that host committee member Gina Shell wrote about the project for the UNC School of Government’s Community Engagement Learning Exchange blog here.