Placemaking
Oshkosh is ready for its best era yet. Discover Oshkosh launched new placemaking efforts in 2025 to leverage key assets through public art and placemaking projects. Our sweet spot is in projects that shift our culture in important ways, enhancing both the quality of life and the visitor experience here. This page is dedicated to those projects, calls for art, and other ways to get involved.
2026: Riverwalk Activation
This summer, Discover Oshkosh is inviting artists, designers, and creative teams to join us in our continued work transforming our riverwalk into a vibrant, immersive public art corridor.
Building on last year’s massive mural installations at the Cummin’s facility and Kolf Sports Center, we have secured locations for a series of public art projects at highly visible and dynamic sites along the Fox River. These sites include:
In addition to these featured locations, artists are encouraged to propose original ideas for sculptures, temporary installations, and interactive art in green spaces along the riverwalk. We are especially interested in concepts that integrate lighting to extend the riverwalk’s energy after sunset and create moments of surprise, gathering, and wonder.
We see public art as a placemaking strategy rooted in the belief that the strongest projects are inseparable from their surroundings. We are seeking work that feels like it could only exist in these locations in Oshkosh—art that responds to the river, the history of these sites, and the everyday life unfolding around them. Successful projects will become destinations unto themselves and shape the visual identity of our community.
Rather than working toward a fixed deadline, these calls will remain open as long as needed to ensure the right art finds the right location. We are open to a wide spectrum of artistic expression, from bold abstract work to figurative or text-based murals. To start the application process, please use our online application to share personal information, sample work, a brief explanation of your concept, and an estimated budget range.
Concepts that excite us will be invited to move into a more specific design phase.
We anticipate completing these projects in 2026 but they will remain open opportunities until an artist is selected. Please email info@sparktowns.com with any questions.
2025 PROJECTS
1,000-Foot Mural
Discover Oshkosh and Cummins are seeking a talented muralist or team of muralists to submit designs for what will become Wisconsin’s largest mural to date. This project will cover the river-facing back wall of the Cummin’s plant, which stretches 1,076 feet in total along the Oshkosh Riverwalk.
This project is an open call. Artists are encouraged to come up with their own concepts and designs but may want to consider both the location of the mural along the Fox River and the work that takes place inside this facility.
View pictures of the wall.
Read the full press release here!
UW-Oshkosh Kolf Sports Center Mural
A bold new public art installation will soon transform the landscape at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh’s Kolf Sports Center. Through a partnership between Discover Oshkosh and UW–Oshkosh, the berms surrounding the facility will be wrapped in dynamic images honoring the legacy and spirit of Titan athletics.
Read the full press release here!
Menominee Park Zoo Murals
We selected Jake Reeder for this project, which will be installed this spring! Stop down to Menonimee Park to watch this installation in process once the weather warms up.
Read the full call here!
We always have other projects in the works! Keep checking back here for new information and more calls, and follow @discoversohkosh on instagram for the latest updates!!
