mk "you are so much to me pt1," 2022, billboard installation.
Spaces of Encounter is a new exhibition at Temple Contemporary gallery, part of the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, examining how public art and the built environment shape understandings of safety, care and belonging. Curated by New York University MA candidate Alyse Tucker in collaboration with Rokh Research & Design Studio founder Danicia Monét Malone (PhD ’26), the exhibition translates Malone’s multi-year Public Arts Census into an immersive, public-facing experience.
On view beginning May 6, with an opening reception on May 9 from 2–5 p.m., Spaces of Encounter explores public space across North and Latin America and the Caribbean through the lens of public art. The exhibition brings together research and artistic material from Albuquerque; Cartagena; and Indianapolis, examining how people interact with public artworks across different urban contexts. Visitors are invited to reflect on who is welcomed into shared spaces—and who is made to feel excluded.
At the center of the exhibition is a guiding question: What does public space ask the body to believe about safety, care and belonging?
“For Black residents navigating environments marked by surveillance, neglect or misrecognition, aesthetic conditions operate as cumulative exposures that influence how safety, care and civic participation are felt in the body,” says Malone.
Through documentation, archival material and sculptural elements, Spaces of Encounter considers how public art mediates lived experience and contributes to collective memory. One featured work includes preserved fragments of a dismantled Black Lives Matter street mural in Indianapolis, foregrounding the fragility and afterlife of public artworks. Even when removed or destroyed, such works persist through memory, documentation and community impact.
“We’re interested in the afterlife of public art—what remains when the physical object is gone,” says Tucker.
The exhibition is particularly resonant in Philadelphia, a city shaped by one of the nation’s most expansive public art and mural programs. As development continues to transform neighborhoods, Spaces of Encounter offers an opportunity to reflect on how public artworks are preserved, displaced or erased—and what those changes mean for communities.
“Our gallery commissioned Spaces of Encounter to demonstrate Tyler’s commitment to being a beacon for art, architecture and community imagination in North Philadelphia and beyond,” says Temple Contemporary’s Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta, PhD. “By blurring inside and outside, the interior versus exterior, it smartly knits together the intimate, culturally specific meanings with public moments of spectacle that anyone can enjoy.”
Spaces of Encounter is supported by the Temple University Center for Sustainable Communities; Temple University Department of Geography, Environmental and Urban Studies; Tyler School of Art and Architecture’s Temple Contemporary; The Malone Foundation; Herbert Simon Family Foundation; The Harrison Center; and BlackSpace.