During a time of budget constraints, and severe strain on local arts groups, the District has managed to pull together $500,000 for a major public arts festival to coincide with the annual Cherry Blossom Festival this spring. The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities  has now announced the names of the 25 artists who will realize various projects around the city.

(Astrid Riecken/The Washington Post)

If everything goes according to plan, a project by artists Deborah Stratman and Steven Badgett will use a “monumental floating platform” in the Tidal Basin to broadcast historic sound recordings (all powered by solar energy). The Berlin-based “KUNSTrePUBLIK,” an artist collective, will create “mobile fountains.” Artist Monica Canilao, from Oakland, will “transform three abandoned houses” into a “a cacophony of color, texture, light and movement.” Wilmer Wilson IV, a student at Howard University, has been selected to create a performance piece about Henry “Box” Brown, a 19th century slave who escaped to freedom by having himself mailed to Philadelphia in 1849. Other projects include a moving museum, sound sculpture, a scavenger hunt and video projected on buildings.

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