TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Dustin Anderson, Director of Community Development
SUBJECT:
title
Award of Contract for the City Square Sculpture to Sijia Chen Studio in an Amount Not to Exceed $197,000.
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BACKGROUND:
The approved City Square design reserved space for a "signature" art installation located approximately 100 feet west from the Rialto Square Theater's main entrance. The City issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to enter into a contract with an accomplished artist to create an iconic signature sculpture at the designated location. After careful review and an extensive public input process, the Joliet Arts Commission is recommending "Dome of Unity" by artist Sijia Chen for the reserved space in City Square.
The City issued an international call for artists through a competitive RFP process in February of 2024. Fifty artists submitted proposals. A review committee of two Arts Commission members and three city staff members screened the initial submissions for compliance with the RFP and chose fourteen submissions to advance onto the sub-finalist stage, where submissions would be reviewed and voted upon by the public. Nearly 3,000 online and in-person votes were cast as a part of the public sub-finalist review process. Six entries that received more than 200 votes were selected to advance as finalists. The artists that created the six finalist entries presented their final conceptual designs to the Arts Commission at its September 18, 2024, meeting. The Arts Commission then held a special meeting on October 2, 2024, to select its final recommended sculpture for Mayor and City Council approval.
The recommended sculpture, "Dome of Unity" is a 12'-tall and 19'-wide domed structure that is intended to be functional, adaptive, and creatively driven. The dome would be made of stainless steel with an acrylic polyurethane paint (white) and would contain an anti-graffiti coating.
Chinese paper cut techniques would be embedded into the structure....
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