Washington, DC is a city of museums filled with world famous art collections and celebrated artists. Yet, some of the most beautiful pieces of art are not to be found in any museum in the city but outside where life happens all the time - on the main streets, on the side alleys, on the metro tracks, on the store shutters, on the electric boxes, on the side walls of buildings and on the nameless structures all over the city. The 'Poetry of Public Art’ project started as a documentation of my explorations of the city on the Washington metro’s red line. Through a growing body of personal street art discoveries, the hesitation of an alien stranger turned into the familiarity of an acquaintance turned into the warmth of a beloved friend. 

The project transformed into a community art class offering with an open invitation to rediscover the nature of diverse human relations with the city, and our own selves through its public art. The class comprised of a crowdsourced public art showcase along with an immersive five senses meditation and creative reflections on the poetry of public art all around us. For the classes, I collaborated with two of my favorite local arts organizations - Knowledge Commons DC, a free school for thinkers, doers, and tinkerers  -- taught anywhere, by anyone, for everyone; and Bloombars, a community arts organization based in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of the city.