Public Art in Oakland Park

By Frank Polanco | content@livinginoaklandpark.com

Thank you Oakland Park for keeping up with times and becoming an art friendly city by turning mysterious infrastructure into public art. Chances are that as you drive around town you probably never noticed them until they became defaced with posts.

Utility Boxes: A Color Touch in Oakland Park

Utility boxes sit on street corners and sidewalks, holding all the valuable equipment that keeps our city clicking along: traffic-light control mechanisms, cable and phone connections, streetlight equipment, heat equipment for bus shelters, flood-control pumps, light-rail switches, electric transformers, and some things that I’m sure I don’t know about. Some utility boxes are owned by the city, others by FDOT, Utility; but no matter the owner, there are thousands of them scattered through the city, sitting like frozen droids, the ultimate mysterious infrastructure.

In an effort to beautify our town, the City of Oakland Park Commission approved the installation of artistic wraps on selected utility boxes at different locations throughout our community. The City published a Call to Artist to select the artist and designs to be used in this project. This project enhances the public realm by adding local artists’ work to surfaces that were frequent targets of vandalism.