Now + There initiatives respond to artists and audiences, weaving their needs and wants throughout every project. Since our inception, we have tried to listen for and learn how to support and facilitate engaging public art experiences, often focusing on how we can repair harmful, systemic divides in our city.
From N +T Asks to projects helping us imagine new futures, we have observed and absorbed artists and activists, renewing and mending ourselves, our neighborhoods, and our worlds.
Some favorites include Faces of Dudley (2015), Open House (2018), Mentoring Murals (2021), and Ponle Vuelo A Tus Sueños/Let Your Dreams Take Flight (2022). As we listen, we continue building a more open and vibrant Boston that makes space for necessary reflection and rest.
And in 2023, we are prioritizing the lived experiences of women-identifying artists and placing their work along Boston's waterfront, one of Boston’s most storied locations for contemplation. These artists will guide us in creating spaces for healing and rejuvenation for 2023: A Year of Mending. In 2023, we present women-identifying artists who create monumental works that offer room to be in a community along the waters that connect Boston to the globe. Together, artists and audiences will revisit and invite our participation to reflect, rest, and repair—mend—Boston's waterfront legacy.
The Boston Harbor has long been a place where Bostonians dissent (think the Tea Party), innovate (think Sonar developed in the Navy Yard), and recreate (think the design of the Harborwalk to protect public access to the waterfront). With all of this movement, the Boston Harbor has also been a locus for strife (from racial tensions in Carson Beach to lost jobs as shipbuilding waned in Charlestown and, along all of Boston’s shoreline, loss of affordable housing in the wake of rapid gentrification). Our 2023 projects will contend with these histories, opening up dialogues about them while reframing the waterfront as sites of suturing and community.
Artists we amplify this Year of Mending engage with how we communicate across time and place. Many are transnational, bringing a range of intersectional perspectives; others are Boston-based, committed to making our city a better place for all. We are eager to start announcing artists and locations as soon as March (including one we have hinted at for over two years!). But until then, we will say that we are thrilled to partner with organizations like the National Park Service at the Charlestown Navy Yard, UMass Boston, and others to expand the conversation around coastal resilience, intermingling Boston and international voices.
We will support Bostonian artists, too, through the Public Art Accelerator, launching their 2022 Accelerator projects this summer and fall. Look for projects recovering joy through playful gestures, grappling with issues of displacement, and offering moments of comfort inspired by ideas of home.
Throughout the year, look for projects and voices that blend local and international perspectives, guiding us all to hear each other in new ways with our Year of Mending.
We promise to seek your stories, perspectives, and experiences and listen for how we can deepen ongoing or new conversations. Stay tuned here or @now_and_there on social media to catch insights and activities that open up more collaboration and meaning-making through the power of public art. Have an idea? Curious about opportunities for you to get involved? Join us on Zoom on January 24, 5:30-6:30 PM, at the virtual Charlestown listening session. Share your vision in the comments below, on social media, or via info@nowandthere.org.
Let us know what you think needs mending in the comments below!
Header Photo: Cat Mazza’s electroknit dymaxion, 2019