PUBLIC’s purpose is to showcase innovative ideas and forms of art. It is a stunningly designed art journal that explores how critical issues intersect with art and visual culture. Featuring Canadian and international artists and writers, each issue curates a unique assemblage of art projects and writing that reflect a contemporary theme.

Public encourages a broad range of dialogue by bringing together artists, theorists, curators, philosophers, creative writers, and historians; by always publishing a diverse range of contemporary artists’ projects; by experimenting with alternative forms of dissemination (i.e. DVD’s); and by inviting guest editors from a variety of communities and organizations.

In 1988 the journal Public was launched by the Public Access Collective, which simultaneously began to publish the journal and curate public art exhibitions that utilized urban screens as a means to consider the potential of public art for both engendering collective experience and insight and for inciting debates and raising awareness in a city (Toronto) that was quickly privatizing every inch of shared space. Since that time, the journal Public has expanded its content, but continues its mandate to investigate ideas of art and culture within the urban context.

Public continues to explore the intersections of visual culture with critical studies: It exists as an intellectual and creative forum that focuses on how aesthetic, theoretical, and critical issues intersect with art and visual culture.