Peace Posts

City Park - 222 N. Park St.

Peace Posts are the signature project of Milwaukee artist, Muneer Bauhaddin. Site specific and created in conjunction with a host community, they have usually been installed in urban neighborhoods but have also been appeared in Ghana and Bali. Reedsburg’s Peace Posts were started in the summer of 2017 and completed and installed in 2018. This collaborative effort began with the artist explaining the history and purpose of the project. Many cultures around the world use public monuments to link their individual creative energies in communal effort and shared intention.

Community members met Muneer at a celebration in City Park where he was set up with clay tiles prepared for use. He gave an introduction and brief instruction in how to model the clay and color it with glazes. The tiles were then fired and set with mortar & grout into stout, rot-resistant wooden posts. Four large black locust trunks were chosen for the posts as it is extremely durable native tree and for this reason often used locally for  fencing. The logs were custom sawn by an Amish sawyer in the Sauk County panhandle. Two sets of posts with about 50 ceramic tiles each were installed along the diagonal sidewalk on the NE and SW axis of City Park. Two more sets may be installed on the crossing axis in the future.

This project was funded in part by the Reedsburg Revitalization Organization, a Good Idea Grant from the Sauk County Arts Humanities and Historical Preservation Committee and Wormfarm Institute. It was facilitated as part of Wormfarm’s Rural/ Urban Flow Initiative.