Create a participatory public project or public art installation
Lauren Muney of Silhouettes By Hand creates an intimate, participatory experience featuring freehand-scissored silhouette portraits
Public and Community Engagement
Using actual custom silhouettes of people, environments, or even animals, Lauren develops truly ‘public’ works which also include the opportunity for the participants to take home their own portraits too.
Community Empathy
Participating in, and viewing, a group portrait project brings together a community and also develops empathy. Since the prefrontal cortex of the human brain is activated by faces and group experiences, viewing and/or participating in Silhouettes By Hand’s public art can activate and calm a community unconsciously.
For areas which wish to connect their individual communities and neighbors, or create an unconscious kinship with the participants, Lauren’s portraits have created an excited stir since the inception of its public art projects.
Listed on the “Maryland State Arts Council Public Art Roster”
Lauren Muney, the artist of Silhouettes By Hand, has been accepted to be included in the Maryland State Arts Council’s new Public Artist Roster. The Roster is a tool for the selection and procurement of Artwork Commissions associated with capital projects at state-owned buildings and facilities. A secondary function of the Roster is that it will be published on MSAC.org as an accessible resource for County Arts Councils and Arts organizations to access at any time.
Questions, Ideas, Requests?
What can we co-create together?
“Restoring Peace, One Face At A Time”
[Frieden wiederherstellen, ein Gesicht nach dem anderen]
(In pre-production during 2025/2026)
Concept and copyright: Lauren Muney and Roeland Paardekooper, 2024
Program: Friedenstein Palace Foundation Public Engagement
Project location: Gotha, Theuringen, Germany
Installation: Early 2027
This project started with inspiration from the aristocratic silhouette portraits in the collection of Friedenstein Foundation Gotha, a distant collection to most community members. Friedenstein Palace, whose name means the “Peace Stone”, was completed in 1654; it was built to inspire peace during the tumultuous Thirty Years War.
This project builds a bridge between Gotha’s aristocratic Baroque era, its castle high on a hill, and the modern residents — and helping them build a bridge to each other. The project straddles a middle ground between public art, participatory art, a museum collection, and a transformative dialogue event.
The project has four parts, linked together by a place of peace:
Portraiting 50 Gotha city working-class residents from different backgrounds, inspired by a silhouette in the castle’s collection of artifacts (September 2026), thanks to Gotha.digital’s effort to connect its collection to the world
Placing the silhouettes on hand-printed backgrounds which mimic the backgrounds of the original silhouettes.
Inviting these portraited residents to connect with each other during a Dialogue Coffee event. Dialogue Coffee events bring together people who have never met, to understand each other. (Winter 2026/2027)
Publicly displaying the portraits in the palace (early 2027)
Presenting the entire project to the world via virtual talks. (2027- )
“Your Face, Your Place in History”
(The Peale Faces Project)
Concept and copyright: Lauren Muney, 2019-2022)
Program: Public Art Across Maryland
Grantor: Maryland State Arts Council (USA)
Project location: Baltimore, Maryland USA
Indefinite permanent installation 2022-
Lauren Muney hand-cut and installed a custom silhouette frieze of 287 Baltimore City, Maryland, residents- for long term, free public display at the Peale Center, the modern incarnation of the original historic ca.1814 Peale Museum - the first building built in the United States as a museum. It is now the community museum of Baltimore.
The almost 300 silhouettes were carefully moved during a renovation in 2024. The almost 300 silhouettes now reside at the top of the sunny store, where every visitor feels the warmth of Baltimoreans around them.
The Peale Faces Project (click here)
“100 Lorscher Profile”
(The Lorsch Faces project)
(Concept: Claus Kropp, 2022)
Program: privately produced
Project location: Lorsch, Hessen, Germany
Project Partner: Back-und Brauhaus
Publication circulation: 500
“100 Lorscher Profile” means 100 Lorsch Profiles in German. Based on the public success of the “Peale Faces” project (above), private citizens in Lorsch, Germany organized a public art to create their own “Lorsch Faces” project with 100 residents. Although almost 200 people volunteered for the project, a lottery was held to select 100 lucky people to be the 100 faces.
The theme of the project was to integrate established and new residents of the town, multi-generations or new refugees - to show the deep shared humanity of these blended cultures in this warm, UNESCO World Heritage city. While the project initially confronted preconceptions of immigrants into an established 1000-year-old town, the project also shows the timelessness of residents - residents, with ages ranging from 5 to 81, show the deep beauty in every person - no matter their age, origin, sex, or economic status.
Lauren worked with organizers and town residents in both English and German.
The final limited-edition printed booklet of the project, was sold at the Lorsch city Christmas Market in December 2022 with 104 town residents’ silhouettes. The proceeds of the booklet sales benefitted a local food pantry.
“100 Lorsch Faces - We show Lorsch in all its diversity and at the same time unity”
Photos by Frank Jaeger