FOLLOWING GEORGE TOWN’S listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the issue of public spaces has received much attention. Be it owned privately or publicly, public spaces allow for people to meet and engage in activities. These can be small corners at the end of streets, or they can be as big as parks. What marks public spaces off from wild spaces, it would seem, is the presence of art. In that sense, sculptures act as reminders of man’s interaction with open spaces. They function as points of orientation, items of memory, and a setter of moods.
The Penang Sculpture Trail
The Penang Sculpture Trail was officially launched in 2010. Despite its beautiful cultural elements, Penang’s urban spaces had not always been welcoming places. When badly maintained, they tended to signal discomfort and even danger, and in fact tended to drive people away. This is changing. To attract people to interact in public spaces, the first step has been to beautify them, and that is easily done through art. And taken as a whole, the intrusion of art into once unmanaged public spaces in Penang is the Penang Sculpture Trail.
