Councilwoman JoAnne Mounce is raising questions about a public art project that will contain religious symbols, saying she is concerned about blending faith and government.
Mounce’s questions grow from inquiries by Lodi citizen David Browda, who is deeply concerned about the artwork and who wrote a letter to the editor regarding it. Browda is upset that the mosaic includes a crescent and star, reflecting Islam.
Mounce, however, is concerned about the principle of mixing religion and public art, and is not taking issue with the inclusion of an Islamic symbol.
The mosaic was designed by three high school students as part of a contest for Project Lodi Art, a community-wide effort overseen by the city’s Arts Commission to get people involved in art projects. Volunteers are creating the tile mosaics, which will be installed when the city reconstructs Lodi Avenue this summer. In a letter to the News Sentinel, Browda said that because of the war on terror and the “onslaught of radical Islam,” the city of Lodi should not include the symbol. He compared including the symbol in the artwork to including a Nazi symbol during World War II, Browda said Tuesday.
His other main concern is that the rules of the contest to select the mosaics states that, “designs may not contain logos of any businesses, groups or other organizations.”
By including symbols of any religion, he said the two designers violated the rules.
“Politics aside, they broke the rules, so it shouldn’t be in there,” Browda said.
‘Why would we set ourselves up for controversy?’
Browda directed his main questions about the artwork to Mounce. She contacted City Attorney Steve Schwabauer to find out his view on the project, and then advised Browda to attend an Arts Commission meeting, write a letter to the-editor or go to a Lodi City Council meeting.
“That’s part of my job,” she said. “I want to empower citizens.
While she is not concerned about the use of the Islamic symbol, Mounce did say she is concerned about the city using any religious symbols in a public sidewalk.
“I believe that we are heading for trouble anytime you display art in a religious nature in which people may or may not understand,” she said.
She believes the issue is even more concerning because of recent events like the Freedom From Religion Foundation threatening to sue if the city didn’t modify its prayer policy.
“The city of Lodi learned a really hard lesson about prayer and how people are very passionate about the expression of religion in government.
Why would we set ourselves up for controversy?” Mounce said.
But not all council members are concerned about the artwork. Councilman Larry Hansen said he is offended that someone would make this an issue of the artwork, because the country was founded on freedom of religion.
“It’s just sad to me we live in a world where people nit-pick. It’s art, it’s freedom of expression, freedom of religion. I would never as an elected official infringe on that,” Hansen said.
Even though she hasn’t seen the tile, Councilwoman Susan Hitchcock said she did not believe it is a problem.
“It looked like this person is promoting peace among all cultures, which is a very positive thing,” she said.
Legally, there is no problem with the piece of sidewalk art because it uses multiple symbols and the goal is not to further any one religion, but instead to support peace among religions, City Attorney Steve Schwabauer said.
“This piece, although it has religious symbols, is not speaking about religion. ... This piece of art is not about advancing the Muslim faith or the Jewish faith. It’s about people living peacefully together,” he said.
Making the tile
Mounce also shares Browda’s concerns that the artwork contains religious symbols, which could have violated the contest rules that there should be no logos.
“In my personal opinion, I believe it is a logo because you think of something,” she said.
She said she would like to speak with the commissioners to find out how and why they selected the piece of art.
The artwork was selected because it effectively expressed the goal of the project to create artwork that celebrates Lodi’s diverse cultural heritage, said Arts Commissioner J. Mark Hamilton. (A letter to the editor from Hamilton appears in today’s editorial section on Page 4.)
He said he doesn’t look at the symbols as logos, but instead an expression of different cultures. The tile project also includes one that has many flags from different cultures, Hamilton said.
Three Pakistani seniors at Lodi Independence School designed the artwork last school year and have since graduated, said Linda Driver, who is a teacher at the school and helped them enter the contest. Rugaya Awnallah, Sahira Khan and Hinna Khan made the tile for the city, and another one that is hanging in Driver’s classroom.
Driver was surprised to hear that anyone could take offense to the artwork. She said the girls researched online different peace symbols from various cultures to create the tile.
“That’s a tile that means peace,” she said. “That is beyond belief. ... The person who is making this complaint knows little of the culture of Islam.”
By saying the crescent moon and star is a solely a terrorist symbol, she said Browda is basically applying the actions of a small minority to an entire culture. It would be the same as pegging the violence during the Crusades as the example of Christianity, she said.
When selecting the artwork, Hamilton said he always thought the tile was encouraging peace.
“My interpretation was peace, which I think is a pretty cool thing,” he said. “We are in a unique environment where we have a large, diverse population that in other parts of the world would want to kill each other. And that’s not going on here. That’s not what the country is founded on. It’s inclusion, not exclusion.”