Chicago residents who want a say in the city's public art have two main routes, and they work very differently. If your goal is broad neighborhood visioning—shaping what themes, types, and locations of art your community prioritizes—the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) runs artist-led engagement campaigns like P.A.R.T.Y. If you want to directly decide which specific projects get funded, your ward's participatory budgeting process lets you propose and vote on actual spending. Both are resident channels; neither is the same as the separate application process professional artists use to seek commissions.
Understanding Chicago's Public Art Landscape
DCASE manages the city's Percent-For-Art Public Art Program, which by city ordinance allocates 1.33% of qualifying capital projects toward public art. The scale is substantial: according to the department's own program page, its public art team was managing nearly 40 projects across 19 wards in 2025—in airports, transit hubs, viaducts, and other public sites—totaling $10 million in public art investments.
Crucially for residents, that pipeline includes projects initiated by City Council members through discretionary funds and participatory budgeting. That means some public art decisions flow through ward-level democratic processes rather than being made entirely inside city government. The department also runs neighborhood-level engagement initiatives designed to gather resident input before investments are made, which is where the P.A.R.T.Y. campaign comes in.
It helps to keep three categories distinct. Neighborhood visioning gathers broad community input to guide priorities. Participatory budgeting puts specific spending decisions to a resident vote. And artist commissions—such as selection from a prequalified list—are a professional application process, not a resident participation channel. This guide covers the first two.
Pathway 1: Shaping Neighborhood Vision with P.A.R.T.Y.
P.A.R.T.Y. stands for Public Art Reimagining Tour with You, and it is DCASE's flagship vehicle for resident input on public art. According to the department, the initiative supports the development of a Public Art Vision Plan for each INVEST South/West neighborhood. Each plan outlines public art themes, types, and locations unique to that neighborhood, contributing to its revitalization.
The campaign is artist-led and seeks community input to guide investment priorities through a series of public input events. DCASE's initial series of these events took place in Englewood, Bronzeville, Austin, and Auburn Gresham. If you live in one of these designated INVEST South/West neighborhoods, this is the channel for telling the city what kind of art you want to see and where.
The input has concrete consequences. DCASE reports that project sites were selected through the P.A.R.T.Y. initiative under INVEST South/West, with the department working alongside Pullman Arts, the Calumet Area Industrial Commission, and community stakeholders, supported by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The initiative brought artists and local stakeholders together to create public artwork for the community. In other words, resident participation at these events feeds directly into which sites receive art.
One caveat: participation details may vary by event, and DCASE's pages do not publish a standing schedule, so residents need to watch for announcements.
Pathway 2: Direct Project Decisions Through Participatory Budgeting
Participatory budgeting is a different animal. As Chicago's 49th Ward explains it, PB is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. The process was first developed in Brazil in 1989, and the first PB process in the United States was launched in Chicago in 2009 by former 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore.
In most wards, this money is allocated by the alderman with varying degrees of input from city departments, staff, and residents. Participatory budgeting changes that: residents offer ideas and vote for specific projects, giving them, in the 49th Ward's words, "a real voice" in how money is spent in the ward. The La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison describes the mechanics as decisions made through a series of assemblies, deliberations, and voting methods—and in participating Chicago wards, residents decide on infrastructure projects like repaving streets, painting murals, and installing new playgrounds.
Public art has a proven track record here. In the 49th Ward's 2012 participatory budgeting cycle, residents proposed and refined an initiative that appeared on the ballot as "Art = Rogers Park," directing $120,000 of the ward's discretionary capital funds—"menu" money—to paint murals on twenty Metra and CTA underpasses. The University of Illinois Chicago's Great Cities Institute reports the project brought employment to 20 local artists and transformed viaducts into public canvases.
Two boundaries matter. Voting is typically open to ward residents aged 16 and over, according to the 49th Ward. And PB in Chicago applies to aldermanic "menu" money for discretionary infrastructure spending—not operational costs. Researchers also caution against overstating the channel: La Follette notes field work showing that full inclusion is not possible through participatory budgeting because it is not designed to give people the power to meaningfully effect broader change in their community.
Your Guide to Chicago Public Art Engagement
Use this matrix to match your goal to the right channel. The classification follows directly from how DCASE and ward offices describe each program's purpose, process, and eligible participants.
| Pathway | Goal of Participation | Type of Engagement | Relevant Program | Who Can Participate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neighborhood Visioning | Broad input on public art themes, types, and locations for your neighborhood | Artist-led public input events that shape a Public Art Vision Plan | P.A.R.T.Y. (Public Art Reimagining Tour with You), run by DCASE | Community members in designated INVEST South/West neighborhoods; details vary by event |
| Project-Specific Funding | Directly decide how to spend part of a ward budget on projects, including public art | Submitting ideas, developing proposals, and voting through assemblies and deliberations | Participatory Budgeting, often involving DCASE for public art projects | Ward residents, with voting typically open to those aged 16 and over |
The reasoning behind the split: visioning asks "what should art in this neighborhood look like?" while participatory budgeting asks "which specific project should this money fund?" A resident who wants murals on local viaducts could pursue both—shaping the vision plan through P.A.R.T.Y., then proposing or voting for the actual project in a ward PB cycle, as Rogers Park residents did with "Art = Rogers Park."
Engage with Chicago's Public Art: Your Next Steps
Chicago residents seeking to influence public art should first determine their goal: broad neighborhood visioning or direct project funding. Then engage through DCASE's P.A.R.T.Y. initiative for vision plans, or through your ward's participatory budgeting process for specific projects. If you are a professional artist rather than a resident giving input, the route is different—DCASE's commission and prequalification processes are separate application channels, not covered here.
The measurable next step: check DCASE's official website or your ward's aldermanic office for announcements of P.A.R.T.Y. events or participatory budgeting cycles. That announcement—whether an input event in an INVEST South/West neighborhood or a ward ballot item funding public art—is the concrete signal that a participation window is open.
Sources
- Chicago Public Art Program
- Participatory Budgeting — Chicago's 49th Ward
- P.A.R.T.Y. (Public Art Reimagining Tour with You) — Chicago
- Chicago’s participatory budgeting a positive, but incomplete, step toward inclusion — La Follette School of Public Affairs
- The Art of Participatory Budgeting | Great Cities Institute — Greatcities
