30+ Public Art Initiatives to Reimagine Boston’s Monuments with City’s Artists and Cultural Leaders

Thursday, July 18, 2024 - Mayor Michelle Wu and the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture (MOAC) today announced the selected artists and public art projects for year one of the City’s “Un-monument | Re-monument | De-monument: Transforming Boston” program. With this funding, artists and local arts organizations will spark conversations about monuments through temporary public art installations, free public events, and interactive arts experiences.

This initiative is supported by a $3 million grant—the largest investment into public art programming in Boston—as part of the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project. The program aims to transform the nation’s commemorative landscape to ensure collective histories are more completely and accurately represented. Boston is one of nine U.S. cities to receive a grant. The City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture will invite artists to submit proposals for year two of the grant in November 2024.  

“Public art can help challenge, reflect, and celebrate our communities, and I am so thrilled to see the work of our grant recipients across our neighborhoods,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “This investment in public art programs is groundbreaking and will support our efforts to highlight the many cultures, talents, and histories of our residents. It is an honor to see this innovation through art.”

The City’s Un-monument program adopts a multifaceted approach to the discourse on monuments through temporary monuments, education, engagement, and public conversations. By providing various pathways of participation to artists, cultural organizations, and community members through a diverse range of projects and engagements, the City expands the role of the public in shaping Boston’s future monuments to sustain a cultural ecosystem for years to come. 

In addition to the artists receiving grant funding, MOAC is inviting Joshua Bennett, Imani Perry, Kerri Greenidge, and other leading figures to speak at a series of public conversations at The Embrace with the Hutchins Center of African & African American Research.

“These selected public art projects celebrate diverse voices and perspectives, uplift democracy and justice, and uncover the city’s rich history while examining the complexity of American stories,” said Kara Elliott-Ortega, Chief of Arts & Culture for the City of Boston. “Emphasizing creativity and experimentation, this initiative features deep collaborations across Boston and beyond with artists, advisory committees, cultural organizations, and educational institutions.”

Through temporary public art installations ​that expand the traditional monument form, the Un-monument initiative aims to help residents reflect on and engage with monuments in Boston and the narratives they create. For 2024, artist-led temporary monuments were commissioned​ by an open call led by MOAC as well as through commissions by five curatorial partners. Artists and other community members were able to apply to participate in an an augmented reality artist workshop, as well as an advisory team to provide community-thought partnership and offer feedback, connections, and recommendations for the duration of the Un-monument program​, including on speakers invited to speak at The Embrace for a public conversation series.

"Un-monument builds on nearly a decade of the Boston community’s collective work," said Director of Public Art for the City of Boston Karin Goodfellow, who is leading Un-monument. “I’m excited to continue this work with artists, cultural leaders, and residents across the city to explore how new works of art can reframe our experience of monuments and better connect our histories to the present."

Additionally, MOAC is broadening its impact through partnerships with the Boston Art Review and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt). By fostering and supporting a new generation of art makers rooted in the city’s cultural landscape, MOAC redefines monuments as more than just objects to encompass the larger dialogue around monuments as it pertains to signage and written language. The Boston Art Review will expand upon the work in Un-monument through research, writing, and publishing about monuments in Boston. MassArt will create educational and interpretive materials, signage, and an online educational component.

TEMPORARY PUBLIC ART MONUMENTS

As part of the Un-monument program, new public art installations across the city will encompass temporary sculptural installations, murals, new media and augmented reality, theater, and socially and community-engaged practices. These projects include a commemoration of the weekly toll of gun violence in the U.S., an immersive sculptural installation of a large Mayan pyramid highlighting the resilience of immigrant communities in Massachusetts, and live painting by local graffiti-artists alongside community dance and music events across the city. 

Selected Projects:

• “Spray It Loud, Display It Proud” Series: Monumental Manifestations of Community in the Medium of Graffiti by A Trike Called Funk with local graffiti artists

• Kinfolk Monuments Project by Kinfolk, led by Idris Brewster

• Future Monument to the Trees of the Public Garden by Katherine Farrington

• Generation Peace Poles by Ruth Henry

• We Were Here Too by Roberto Mighty

• Going to Ground by LaRissa Rogers and Zalika Azim

• The Gun Violence Memorial Project by Hank Willis Thomas and MASSDesign Group

• Boston Chinatown: Stories on The Streets by Alison Yueming Qu and The Lot Next Door by Jaronzie Harris

“Stone and bronze have been used for centuries to show what’s important and who matters. Thankfully, those kinds of monuments are increasingly being erected to people whose accomplishments have been left out of our shared origin story. New media presents artists and commissioning bodies with exciting ways of creating monuments that are at once site-specific, instantly available worldwide, and financially within reach,” said artist Roberto Mighty.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GRANTS

Eight additional artists were selected to receive grants to support research and development for future projects. These projects include a proposal honoring and uplifting the legacy of Ella Little Collins, Malcolm X’s older sister; an interactive memorial that encourages personal and collective reflection on the Vietnamese diaspora experience; and a series of public interventions aiming to uplift the story of Crispus Attucks and the Boston Massacre.

• 1975: A Vietnamese Diaspora Memorial by Ngoc-Tran Vu

• Crispus in July: Requiem for a Revolutionary... aka A Series of Interventions and Meditations in Public Space to Contemplate Freedom Trails and Trials and Politicized Deaths of Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, Those of the United States of America by lauren woods

• On The Prowl by Rixy 

• Project inspired by A People's Monument by Cedric Douglas

• Project inspired by Roxbury Love by Ricardo Gomez

• Recognize Ella (Working Title) by Fatima Seck

• title in progress immigrant's monument by Tania Bruguera

• "ELEVAR LA CULTURA" by Victor Quiñonez

CURATORIAL PARTNERS

In addition to artist-led projects, MOAC is funding commissions led by five curatorial partner organizations with the intention of creating opportunities for more perspectives to join the conversation about what monuments could be in Boston. Commissioning local organizations to expand upon the Un-monument program supports Boston’s creative ecosystem and allows for participation in this dialogue at multiple levels.

“No action is more urgently needed than rediscovering how to love ourselves and thus cancel violence in our communities. Artists help us visualize ways of doing that through creativity. We discover ourselves as we create ourselves through music, spoken words, and visual exuberance. Just such rediscovery is the goal of Cancel Violence,” said Barry Gaither, Director and Curator of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.

The 5 curatorial partner organizations are:

• Emerson Contemporary, co-curated by Leonie Bradbury and Shana Garr

  • Regarding Monuments: Visualizing Hidden Histories

    • off the pedestal by Laura Anderson Barbata, New Red Order (NRO), Paula J. Wilson

    • I have asked myself: "Can a sentence be haunted? And if so, by what?" by Kameelah Janan Rasheed,  

    • THIS IS AMERICA by Louis Cameron

  • Transforming Boston: Hidden in Plain Sight with Sue Murad, Clareese Hill, and Elisa Hamilton

• North American Indian Center of Boston, co-curated by Janelle Pocowatchit and Jean-Luc Pierite

  • Mother Earth Back: Landscapes of the Southwest by Geraldine Barney

  • Portals: Mending in the Multiverse by Mea Johnson

  • IndigiMarket: Indigenous Artist Exposition curated by Mea Johnson, Gloria Colon, and Janelle Pocowatchit

  • Boston Indigenous Public Space Initiative, Meet and Greet on Cultural Use curated by Robert Peters

• Boston Public Art Triennial, curated by Jasper Sanchez with Kate Gilbert

  • TORII by Matthew Okazaki

  • The Resurrection of Mark, Phillis, & Phebe by Ifé Franklin

  • Gulf Stream by Hugh Hayden

• Pao Arts Center, curated by Lani Asunción

  • Imagine Safety by Joanna Tam

  • Abundance Among Us - Dragon & Friends by Maria Fong, Sheila Novak, Wen-hao Tien

  • Ping Pong Tables of Chinatown: A Celebration of Diversity and Nature by Jennifer Duan, Stephanie Li, Kathlyn Lipton

  • The Thousand Bloom – A Chrysanthemum Grows in Chinatown by Anita Yip

  • Healing Tofu Tricycle Performance & Workshops by Ying e

• National Center of Afro-American Artists, curated by Barry Gaither

  • Cancel Violence: Artists Speak by Paul Goodnight, Robert “ProBlak” Gibbs, Robert Stull, L’Merchie Frazier, Laurence Pierce, Shea Justice, Hakim Raquib, and Johnetta Tinker.

FREE PUBLIC PROGRAMMING

Working with The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, the Friends of the Public Garden, and Embrace Boston, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture will host a series of public conversations at The Embrace about democracy and justice, inviting people to think about interconnections between monuments, public memory, and daily lives. 

“Monuments aspire to tell our stories of shared peoplehood, pay homage to our losses, and reflect society’s highest aspirations back to us,” said Dr. Brandon Terry, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences and curator of public conversations at The Embrace. “The hope is to remind people that memorialization is just the beginning of an ongoing conversation about what matters that we must all take part in if our fragile democratic experiment is going to reflect our most significant concerns.”

Public programming will kick off with:

• July 31 at 5:30 p.m.: Poetry, Public Art, and the Politics of Memory

• August 21 at 5:30 p.m., Ideas of America/New England

• September 25 at 5:30 p.m.

UN-MONUMENT ADVISORY TEAM

As part of this process, the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture assembled an advisory team composed of a cohort of diverse stakeholders who will provide thought partnership, weigh in on community engagement strategies, offer critical feedback, and more throughout the duration of the program. The Un-monument Advisory Team is made up of business owners, academics, activists, non-profit organization directors, school leaders, educators, and artists from across the city.

The members of the Un-monument Advisory Team are:

• Jha D Amazi, Principal, MASS Design Group

• Chenoa Baker, curator and arts writer

• Joshua Bennett, Professor of Literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities, MIT

• Marlene Boyette, Boston-based wellness educator

• Sidney Bowden, Manager of Community Partnerships, The New Commonwealth Fund

• Stephen Chan, Senior Advisory for Partnerships, City of Boston

• Francesca Colletti, Executive Director, New England, Facing History & Ourselves

• Musau Dibinga, Executive Director, OrigiNation Cultural Arts Center

• Kara Elliott-Ortega, Chief of Arts and Culture, City of Boston

• Erin Genia, multidisciplinary artist, educator, and community organizer

• Joel Christian Gill, Chair, Boston University College of Fine Arts MFA in Visual Narrative

• Walae Hayek, Founder and President, ROYA

• Nakeisha Johnson, Chief of Staff, Embrace Boston

• Erin Kelly, Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University

• Amira Madison, Councilwoman, Tribal Council of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah

• Jessica Nguyen, Senior Program Associate of the Racial Equity in Journalism (REJ) Fund, Borealis Philanthropy

• Tim Philips, Founder and CEO, Beyond Conflict

• Abigail Satinsky, Program Officer and Curator of Arts & Culture, Wagner Foundation

• theo tyson, Penny Vinik Curator of Fashion Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

• Durane West, spoken word artist and educator

ARTIST AUGMENTED REALITY WORKSHOPS

Due to the novelty of the technology and the access barriers to getting started in making new media art, MOAC partnered with Emerson Contemporary to run an Art and Technology Incubator in the spring of 2024. This incubator provided creative technology training for artists interested in expanding and diversifying their practices to help expand the pool of applicants for the commissions and diversity practitioners in the media art field.

The 2024 incubator participants were:

• Cicely Carew

• Jaina Cipriano

• L’Merchie Frazier

• Eric De Luca

• NewmNera

• Hamzat Raheem

• Hakim Raquib

• Sarah Stefan Smith

• Joanna Tam

• Dayenne Walters

To learn more about Un-monument and the grantees, visit boston.gov/un-monument.