"It connects Derry to the range of European cities which have rich heritages and have also developed public art projects as a way of negotiating the future, " he said.

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Public art projects, such as Christo and Jeanne Claude's "The Gates, " which transformed New York City's Central Park into a saffron-colored wonderland last February, have delighted millions of visitors.

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Mr. Oldenburg, who lives in New York, spent much of his later career creating huge public art projects with his wife, curator and critic Coosje van Bruggen, who died of cancer in 2009.

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Spreading the Sydney Festival throughout the city, Kaldor Public Arts Projects, an Australian arts organisation that transforms spaces with emotive art, has taken its most recent project to Parramatta Town Hall in the western suburbs.

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Dedicated to offering the public "powerful experiences with art and the urban environment, " the fund's other projects have included bringing Jeff Koons's topiary-puppy sculpture to Rockefeller Center and Rob Pruitt's statue of Andy Warhol to Union Square.

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Moore's work in textiles was inspired by his aims as an artist after the second world war, particularly his belief, as a Socialist, that art could be a cohesive force in society, bringing together communities through creative public projects.

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