This Note explores the interplay between public art, homelessness, and urban policy through an analysis of Rain and Lightweave, two installations in Washington, D.C.’s NoMa district. These works, commissioned as part of a broader neighborhood revitalization effort, were installed only after the removal of homeless encampments from the underpasses they now occupy. Through the frameworks of James Boyd White’s constitutive rhetoric and Sonja K. Foss’s visual rhetorical analysis, this Note examines how law and public art function in tandem to regulate space and shape public perception. It situates these installations within the evolving legal landscape of anti-homeless ordinances, particularly following the 2024 Supreme Court decision City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which upheld municipal bans on sleeping in public. By tracing the ways in which judicial reasoning and aesthetic interventions converge to redefine urban space, this analysis demonstrates how public art, like law, operates not merely as a reflection of societal values but as an active force in constructing social hierarchies and enforcing exclusionary policies.

Click to Continue Reading Sleeping Together: Rhetorics of Displacement from Underpass to Grants Pass