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The Art of Happiness: Now + There Announces 'Joy Parade' Across Boston on Sept. 14

Boston, Sept. 9 – This Saturday, September 14, international performance artist Nick Cave, along with over 75 exuberant local performers, and hundreds of festive Bostonians will take to the streets for Boston’s first-ever Joy Parade. What brings them together? Joy...and Cave’s buoyant inflatable sculpture Augment, produced by local public art curators Now + There. The artist and organizers encourage Bostonians of all backgrounds to register at www.nowandthere.org/joyparade and joyfully come together and help transport Cave's sculpture to its ultimate destination from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Public art on a truly massive scale, the Augment Joy Parade will step off from 539 Tremont Street in the South End (where it has been on public display since early August at the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts) and make its way to 555 Columbia Road in historic Upham's Corner, a newly designated Arts and Innovation District. Its arrival will enhance a day of festivals and fulfill a rich collaboration among Now + There, Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI), Upham's Corner Health Center, Upham's Corner Main Street and Company One Theatre. Augment will join the annual Arts and Health Festival, DS4SI's inPUBLIC festival, and music curated by BAMS Fest. A speaking program will commence around 2 p.m. with city representatives, Nick Cave, and organizers.

The parade promotes two goals for the project and Now + There’s mission to build a public art city.

First, it will symbolically unite two culturally different sections of Boston, one an established arts neighborhood, the other currently being developed with diversity and inclusion at its core; highlighting the importance of inclusivity in the arts. There, Augment will join up with its waiting other half: a community-created vinyl collage, made with the help of DS4SI and local artists, wrapped around the former bank at 555 Columbia Road, a vacant city-owned property. Once installed, Augment will spill out the windows while the collage hugs the building, both highlighting the vibrancy of Upham’s Corner.

Second, this hopeful social experience fulfills Cave's artistic exploration: bringing joy to others. Indeed, art for Cave is an exploration of happiness, what causes it, its ultimate meaning, and how it can help heal a society riven by division. As the artist has explained, his multifaceted project asks us to reflect on the power of art to bring all peoples together.

Cave named the installation "augment," he says, based on the word's meaning of “to enhance or making things better." As he has explained, "We have the opportunity to create projects and installations that, although we may have our differences, create a common ground in a moment of expression. For the Upham's Corner residents who were a part of making collages, for them to see that they matter, that they are being seen, is another critical part of this project."

"We strive to present contemporary art that's immediately recognizable and accessible to the public, yet contains a deeper social inquiry at its core," says Now + There's Executive Director Kate Gilbert. "Walking a parade with people who don't look like you through three very different neighborhoods will undoubtedly spark questions of inclusivity and how we can cultivate more togetherness."

It is no coincidence that Augment Joy Parade, inPUBLIC, and the Arts and Health Festival are all on the same day; it is the outcome of new and old partnerships that are dedicated to celebrating Upham's Corner's vitality, culture, and innovation.

Staying true to their values of supporting local artists, Now + There has arranged for the paid participation of more than 75 Boston-area artists and performers in the parade—including stilt walkers, artists carrying a 100-foot rainbow, winged youth from Boston Art Academy, brass bands, masked walkers, and pre-recorded mixes by Boston music legend DJ Bruno—as well as some inPUBLIC performances.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

September 12 and 13, 2019

Parade Preview Days - final days to see the exhibit with making events

Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street
Visit (http://www.nowandthere.org/blog/2019/9/4/get-parade-ready) for making hours.

September 14, 2019

Augment Joy Parade

11 a.m. Step off from the Cyclorama, 539 Tremont Street; 12 p.m. Arrive in Dudley Square; 1 p.m. conclude in Upham’s Corner. Learn more and sign up at www.nowandthere.org/joyparade

Upham’s Corner Festivals - Hosted by Upham’s Corner Health Center, Upham’s Corner Main Streets, DS4SI, and Company One Theater

11 a.m. to 3 p.m annual Upham’s Corner Arts & Health Festival https://www.madrc.org/uphams-corner-art-health-street-festival

12 p.m. to 7 p.m inPUBLIC including 1431s, an indigenous comedy troupe, BAMS Fest’s DJ picks K.C. Hallet and D.J, Savuth and the Revelry Food Truck https://www.ds4si.org/interventions/inpublic

September 25, 2019 through April 2020

Augment installation in Upham’s Corner

555 Columbia Road, Upham’s Corner; Accessible 24 hours/day

PROGRAM NOTES

Augment the sculpture: The sculpture comprises five clouds made of lawn ornament inflatables, each roughly 3,750 square feet in size. Two of the five will be moved during the Joy Parade. The clouds move almost as if alive through the use of fans. Cave spent 1,200 hours sewing them without assistants.

Augment Building wrap and community collages: The final building wrap designed by Cave’s studio incorporates inflatable imagery and collages made during 13 workshops held at six locations: Bird Street Youth Program, Boston Public Library Upham's Corner Branch, Cape Verdean Adult Day Health Center, DS4SI, Lila Frederick Pilot Middle School, and St. Mary's Episcopal Church. Workshops were led by local artists Barrington Edwards, L'Merchie Frazier, Destiny Polk and Wilton Tejada with DS4SI. Six additional collages are featured on street banners in Upham's Corner while many of the original collages are exhibited in storefront windows. Collage-making will continue during inPUBLIC.

inPUBLIC is a 2-day festival by DS4SI that highlights the importance of “public-making”—the collective creation of opportunities for interaction, laughter, dialogue, learning and surprise—and aims to create a multi-textured and joyous counter-atmosphere to this moment of increased isolation, tension and repression. (https://www.ds4si.org/interventions/inpublic)

Upham’s Corner Arts and Health Festival includes arts activities, live entertainment, and health information from various organizations; sponsored by the Upham's Corner Health Center and Upham's Corner Main Streets (https://www.madrc.org/uphams-corner-art-health-street-festival).

Nick Cave is an artist, educator, and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Cave is best known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body that mask and create a second skin that conceals race, gender and class, forcing the viewer to look without judgment. He opened a massive, immersive installation Until at MASS MoCA, October 15, 2016-August 2017 and had a solo exhibition Here Hearon view at the Cranbrook Art Museum (2015). Other solo exhibitions include St. Louis Art Museum (2014-2015), the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (2014) and the Denver Art Museum (2013).

Cave has received several prestigious awards including: the Americans for the Arts 2014 Public Art Network Year in Review Award (2014), Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2008), Artadia Award (2006), the Joyce Award (2006), Creative Capital Grants (2002, 2004 and 2005), and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2001). Cave, who received his MFA at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, is Professor and Chairman of the Fashion Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Now + There (N+T) is a non-profit public art curator changing the landscape with temporary and site-specific public artworks. Through its curatorial and fundraising efforts, N+T is transforming Boston into a public art city by creating a portfolio of projects that supports artistic risk-taking in order to catalyze community dialogue, and cultural change. (www.nowandthere.org)

Augment is funded by generous contributions from the Lewis Family Foundation, The Boston Foundation, Barr Foundation, Wagner Foundation, the City of Boston, NEFA Fund for the Arts, and Krupp Family Foundation, with support from the City of Boston, the Boston Planning & Design Agency and WBUR.

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For publicity inquiries or more information regarding Now + There or Augment contact:

Kate Gilbert, Now + There Executive Director at 617-283-1841 or kate@nowandthere.org