

Public Art and Placemaking
Public Art is a distinguishing part of our public history and our evolving culture. It reflects and reveals our society, adds meaning to our cities and uniqueness to our communities. Public art humanizes the built environment and invigorates public spaces. It provides an intersection between past, present and future, between disciplines, and between ideas. Public art adds enormous value to the cultural, aesthetic and economic vitality of a community. It is now a well-accepted principle of urban design that public art contributes to a community’s identity, fosters community pride and a sense of belonging, and enhances the quality of life for its residents and visitors. Cities gain real value through public art.
In 2019, Kasum formed Manifold Creative Concepts; a multidisciplinary studio focused in meeting the needs of site-specific public art projects. Manifold combines a diverse compendium of visual artists, serving an array of media, with project managers and coordinators, construction engineers, architects, and art’s administrators. Constantly expanding, the studio is currently in partnerships with creatives, cultural leaders and creative support professionals from across the US, EU, UK, AU and East Africa. Manifold was founded on a desire to serve site-specific public and corporate art projects through multicultural, multi-gender and multi-generational, interdisciplinary collaborations that bridge boundaries to achieve new forms of artistic expression and offer mentorship that aid the growth of developing creative and cultural leaders. Manifold partners with creatives, studios, innovators and cultural leaders to envision, design, fabricate and install seminal public artworks. Every Manifold Team is unique to the project it serves and every Manifold project is a collaboration. Manifold Creative Concepts is headed by Principal Anton Morton and Associate Principal Pamela Zeljak.