The Civic Portal project—PennDesign, Monument Lab, and Penn’s Sachs Program for Arts Innovation—has been awarded a grant to develop a digital tool that would allow people to envision future public monuments.

The $50,000 grant was one of 12 awarded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for projects to uncover new, and potentially replicable, strategies for cultural organizations to succeed in the digital era, harnessing the power of technology to engage people with the arts.

Leading the Civic Portal project are PennDesign’s Ken Lum, professor and chair of the fine arts department, and Paul Farber, C’01, fine arts and urban studies lecturer. Together they are co-curators of Monument Lab, a public arts and history initiative based in Philadelphia. Dr. Farber is its artistic director, and Mr. Lum is the chief curatorial advisor.

The grant will be used by Civic Portal to prototype an application-based engagement tool to explore topics, locations and even create the designs for potential public art and monuments in Philadelphia and other cities.

“The application tool is an ‘imagining’ tool for enhancing public experience and input in terms of public art possibilities,” Mr. Lum said. “The tool begins from the idea that citizens could contribute their ideas for public art while also expanding their understanding of the language of art, memorials and monuments in public space.”

All the winning Knight projects have nine months to create or refine a prototype of their idea. Project leaders will convene throughout the process to learn innovation techniques and test ideas. The teams will meet next April for a demo day to share their discoveries and prototypes.