In this essay, I address the multiple experiences of the public (such as public policy, public health, public opinion or the publics), many of which we experience in a fragmented manner, as if these experiences of the public had no relation to each other. However, my premise is that what initially appears as a non-cohering adjective -the public in, for instance, public policy- might be understood in a comprehensive and innovative way when we unearth its shared semantics articulated by the substantive -the public. Furthermore, such nucleation of meanings around the noun allows us to conceive critical and innovative forms of response to a society historically polarized by social inequalities and violence, with elevated processes of bureaucratization and high levels of corruption and inefficiency, which is intimately connected to the global economy.