The Arts Commission’s Art in Public Places Program Launches Free Digital Public Art Guide

Eye On Art  |  04/10/2025 3:30 pm

The Arts Commission’s Art in Public Places program, which manages the City of Toledo’s public art collection via the One Percent for Art Program, is launching a new digital public art guide as a free resource via the Bloomberg Connects platform. 

The guide is available as both a mobile app and web browser, with a wide array of features to equip all visitors to explore Toledo’s Public Art collection, including on-site tours, a live map showing user location for wayfinding within the collection, audio descriptions for selected works, and a slate of accessible features including translation and screen reader capabilities, transcripts, subtitles, alt-text, and more. Select works also include individual on-site accessibility notes highlighting transit, parking, seating, and other site conditions. 

This guide is the result of an ongoing accessibility initiative for the Art in Public Places collection, informed by an accessibility audit completed in 2024 in partnership with The Ability Center, and supported by an Ohio Arts Council ArtsNEXT grant. 

The guide contains over 50 major sculptures throughout the city, and The Arts Commission aims to expand access to include other works in the Art in Public Places collection including murals, benches, bike racks, and signal box wraps. 

In addition to the Art in Public Places Collection, the Bloomberg Connects platform includes guides to hundreds of museums, collections, and exhibitions around the world. 

The Digital Public Art Guide can be found here:
https://theartscommission.org/public-art/digital-public-art-guide

More information about Toledo’s public art collection can be found here:
theartscommission.org/public-art/collection

All questions should be directed to:

Nathan Mattimoe
Director of Art in Public Places
419.254.2787 Ext. 1011
[email protected]

About The Arts Commission
The Arts Commission is the longest standing arts commission in the state of Ohio, founded in 1959, administering the City of Toledo’s One Percent for Art Program since 1977. The Arts Commission is supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.