Explore the Telegraph District Art Plan.

Telegraph Avenue has long occupied a central position within the greater cultural and historical context of Berkeley, California. Distinct from downtown Berkeley and the flats to the west, Telegraph is home to the birth of the free speech movement and numerous social justice protests that brought the name of this avenue to prominence within American popular consciousness. Today, the Telegraph District is a popular commercial corridor, catering to both the student population of U.C. Berkeley and the local community.

Yet the District is also beset by seemingly intractable social issues: drug peddling and addiction, mental illness, service-resistant homelessness and aggressive panhandling. Within this rich social and historical ecosystem, MoreLab was engaged to explore the many opportunities to elevate and enliven the Telegraph District through a range of public art projects that vary in scale and duration, from public performances to social practice projects, from temporary exhibitions to permanent signature sculptures, from the miniature to the monumental.

Through a series of meetings, presentations and conversations with a wide range of community stakeholders, including merchants, public agencies and university officials, we gathered, analyzed and synthesized a significant volume of data and organized it in the form of the Telegraph District Art Plan.