MILWAUKEE — Art can invoke many things, and now the city of Milwaukee is hoping it can create safer streets.
Over the past year, TMJ4 has examined possible solutions to the city's reckless driving problem through our project drive safer reporting.
Andrea Albers recently met with an artist who has been hired to take on the challenge.
A complex issue requires a creative mindset. That's the idea behind a pilot program that has put an artist on the city payroll... and her first project is transforming a truck.
"What we're looking at here is actually just the initial concept sketch," said Sarah Davitt, pointing toward a sketch of a vehicle, modified with dozens of brightly colored construction cones. "Mad Max, but make it safely," she said with a laugh.
Davitt is working on a mobile approach to Milwaukee's mobility problem. She is the city's 'Public Artist in Residence'. And she's the first to ever take on the role — using art to solve community challenges, like reckless driving.
"The joyful aspect is something that is missing from a lot of the work in this (reckless driving) space," she explained. "There's a lot of pain and suffering — because people have been lost, and people have been hurt."
Davitt says her vision for the new approach has not been well received by everyone. "There was an expectation that stories of pain and suffering create change. And I think that there's other ways to do it," she added.
Davitt has spent much of the year learning, listening and meeting with drivers. Some who she says were dismissive because of the narrative that typically surrounds reckless driving. "They'll be like, 'You're talking about safety? I think my mother does this to me, I'm walking away.'"
She believes her work could spark a richer dialogue, saying "If people are talking, that's winning."
Come spring of 2024 you can expect to see her creation out on Milwaukee roads.
Click here to see examples of her work.
There will be a naming contest so stay tuned for that. Davitt has a 20-year history of creating large-scale retro-reflective art for social change.
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