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Behind the Lens: The Best Designed Basketball Courts in the World

According to Vogue anyway.

behind the lens basketball courts
(William LaChance)
William LaChance is a successful St. Louis artist whose paintings are hung in galleries around the world. But one of his most famous -- and largest -- works of art is routinely walked on, run on and even dribbled on.

Last summer, he transformed a cluster of neglected basketball courts in the Missouri town of Kinloch into a giant, brightly colored abstract painting. Once a flourishing African-American community, the Kinloch area began to decline in the 1980s -- and the local park along with it.

LaChance was contacted by Project Backboard, a nonprofit devoted to improving dilapidated basketball courts through art. The new courts were recently named by Vogue as some of the best designed in the world. 

David Kidd is a photojournalist and storyteller for Governing. He can be reached at dkidd@governing.com.
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