7.75 × 9.75 inches, 192 pages, softcover

ISBN 978-1-970449-14-3

Design by Rissa Hochberger

Published by Inventory Press

Available for Pre-order
Shipping December 2026

Civic Views: A Reader explores the historic struggles and radical potentials of the public sector through the lens of artistic intervention. Civic Views is a public art project by Emilio Martínez Poppe, curated by Jameson Paige, and commissioned by Mural Arts Philadelphia, that champions the people, infrastructure, and ethics that keep city government running at a time when the public sector faces growing scrutiny, restructuring, and privatization. This reader extends the conversations hosted in the project's 2025 installation in Philadelphia's City Hall Courtyard, featuring republished and newly commissioned texts by interdisciplinary scholars, labor organizers, city employees, curators, and artists.

Essays by Thomas Keenan, Michelle Smiley, and Shannon Mattern explore the contested legacies and novel technologies shaping the public sphere, while Paige and LaCharles Ward analyze aesthetic strategies of resistance to dominant modes of representing workers. Paul Prescod and Latisha Thompson report on labor struggles against rising authoritarianism, and Martínez Poppe proposes strategies for artists to join this movement. The reader also includes images and texts from the installation, an original poem by Sandra Lindsay performed throughout the artwork, and a conversation between Martínez Poppe and Alex Strada on the emergent possibilities of contemporary public art practice.