The project involves some 30 artists and weaves its way for 6 miles down Jefferson Avenue — with side tours to places like Sugarloaf Mound and a native bee sanctuary. “It’s a celebration of our city and our incredible art scene,” says James McAnally, artistic director for the exhibition. “We want to spotlight everything we have to offer.”

Destruction of Native American mounds, the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood and Pruitt-Igoe housing project make up some of the St. Louis history recalled by the art project, which runs for three months, starting with a kickoff party April 14 outside the CityPark soccer stadium.

But the lost past isn’t the only theme. Artists will also be thinking about the future and how to commemorate St. Louis history.

“Artists are trying to draw attention to issues of right now, issues of our history, possibilities of our future,” McAnally says.

The 2023 initiative is the second incarnation of Counterpublic, a triennial event that commissions public art for St. Louis. In doing so, it involves permanent and temporary creations that use many types of media, from sound and film to augmented reality.

Before planning the project, residents were questioned about what they wanted, McAnally says. The No. 1 request was new monuments and public memory projects.

Over the initial weekend, several events are scheduled, including a 50-car sonic installation in St. Louis Park Place (2 p.m. April 15) and roundtable discussions at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (April 16). Visit counterpublic.org for details.

Coincidentally, Counterpublic kicks off the same weekend as the arrival of another art project, “Banksyland.” But while both engage with social issues in a public way, Counterpublic is completely sanctioned by its city and the artists, local and national, who have collaborated and partnered with museums, neighborhoods and other entities.

Mound City

One main focus for Counterpublic is the Indigenous history of the area before it became “St. Louis,” particularly its oldest human-built structure. Sugarloaf Mound is owned in part by the Osage Nation, descendants of the original Mound builders.

Near the three-tiered mound overlooking the Mississippi River, artist Anita Fields of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has installed wooden platforms. Her son, fiddler Nokosee Fields, collaborated to provide a soundscape that will be active at certain times. And in between the historic mound, located at 4420 Ohio Street, and the Fields’ “WayBack” exhibition is a billboard reading “When you listen the land speaks.”

Most of the wooden platforms have brightly painted tops, with some decorated with ribbons or ceramic tiles. They are similar to what Anita Fields remembers from her childhood as part of her life at Osage events, she says. People had platforms that they’d use for many things, including visiting, napping or preparing for dances. Her memories of gestures and laughter take her “way back.” Another reference for the installation’s title is that she’ll be coming to Missouri: “We’re making our way back to this place that was so important to our history.”

She recalls that the Osage began embellishing their clothing with ribbon after they obtained needles and bright ribbons from French fur trappers here. Before the Native people were removed from Missouri by white authorities, it was “part of our original homeland,” Fields says. “We have a history with that area going very, very far back.”

In addition to calling attention to Indigenous history, Counterpublic wants to help the Osage Nation gain control of the entire Sugarloaf Mound. The nonprofit has offered to buy out owners of two houses on lower tiers of the mound, McAnally says. The owners “are open to the discussion,” he says.

Other Native artists are also involved in Counterpublic, including Cannupa Hanska Luger, a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold who now lives near Santa Fe, New Mexico. His modern buffalo dancers will be seen through “augmented reality digital overlay” onto St. Louis horizons. In essence, a visitor’s cellphone uses a social media app, and where its camera points, Luger’s figures will appear amid real-life backgrounds as they do a dance of reverence for the buffalo.

Luger wants people to recognize that the city is built on much-older land. But he uses modern technology, like phones, to reach people. “The function of art should be applied to the social structures we navigate,” he says.

“Presenting these figures on the landscape hopefully makes you feel small,” Luger says. “And maybe in that smallness, you have a better relationship with your interdependence with the environment.”

South Jefferson

A vinyl image by Luger will be attached to an exterior wall of the Luminary, while at the Monaco gallery, a mixed-media canvas creation by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is called “State Names Map: Cahokia.” Both are located at 2701 Cherokee Street.

In Benton Park, “Music for 13 Paths” will involve chimes installed on the park’s tallest hill, with a performance by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon at 10 a.m. April 15.

St. Louis artist Simiya Sudduth has painted a tarot card-type mural, “Justice,” at 2311 South Jefferson Avenue. She also will have a couple of pop-up events at a trailer that has been turned into a mobile meditation studio and parked at Rung for Women, 2717 Sidney Street.

On the mural, a Black woman holds cotton in each hand, referencing the area’s slave-owning past. It’s important to recognize some of the hard things in St. Louis’ past and present,

Sudduth says, and engaging with public art is important. “St. Louis is changing. We are figuring out art is really powerful.”

Sudduth believes public art “makes people want to invest in their community and gives them a sense of pride.” Counterpublic itself is a “great opportunity for St. Louis,” she says. “It will open doors for more public art and more civic engagement.”

Downtown west and north

One of the major permanent installations connected to Counterpublic is “Pillars of the Valley” by Damon Davis at CityPark. Over the next few years, the granite hourglass shapes, which commemorate the former Mill Creek Valley neighborhood, will expand along the Brickline Greenway.

Nearby, at the St. Louis Wheel at Union Station, which offers bird’s-eye views of the area, visitors can ask to ride in dedicated gondolas that will play “Sky Is the Only Roof” by Steffani Jemison.

At Memorial Plaza, 1720 Market Street, obsidian boulders are part of work by Jordan Weber. At the end of Counterpublic, the installation will find a permanent home at Peace Park near the North Grand water tower.

The art initiative extends north to the Griot Museum of Black History, where another major permanent installation is still being built. Architect David Adjaye’s “Asaase III” is made of rammed earth and stainless steel and is financed by a $1 million gift from Chrissy Taylor and her husband, Lee Broughton, a co-founder of Counterpublic. Adjaye is scheduled to lead a preview showing of his first permanent public artwork at noon April 15 at the museum, 2505 St. Louis Avenue.

At the Northside Workshop, 1306 St. Louis Avenue, Juan William Chávez’s “Decolonizing the Hive: Native Bee Stewardship Network” includes a bee sanctuary, art studio and teaching garden.

On nearby Cass Avenue, near the old Pruitt-Igoe site, artist Tim Portlock has created billboards with words and digitized images that commemorate the 57-acre public housing effort and its residents.

Portlock, a professor at Washington University, interviewed residents, asking about their memories of life in Pruitt-Igoe.

He acknowledges that most St. Louisans are aware of the failed housing project, which was demolished starting in 1972, but he thinks the personal stories of the residents are often left out of the project’s history. Some memories were positive, others negative. Single or divorced mothers of different races often worked together to help with child care, he found.

“I do think there is power in commemorating things, to point out to the broader public that this thing happened or that this thing exists,” Portlock says. Creating public awareness with artwork “can help people feel they’re a community.”

What Counterpublic • When April 15-July 15; grand opening 7-9 p.m. April 14 at CityPark • Where Various locations • How much Free • More info counterpublic.org