As N+T prepares for the next cohort of our Public Art Accelerator– an intensive workshop based program designed to support four local artists in the expansion of their practice and culminating in the execution of a $25,000 project in one of Boston’s neighborhoods– we are also in the midst of celebrating new thoughtful and engaging public artworks from 2022’s Cohort Five. So far this year we’ve been invited by a puppeteer to generate a little Black girl’s joy and exchange stories and plants as an act of care; we’ve been asked to consider histories of migration, labor, and the garment industry as a thread between Chinatown and the Leather District; we’ve been encouraged to reflect on the effect rising waters and the passing of time will have on the places we call home; and later this month we will be welcomed into a memory-driven bench inspired by issues of displacement and the housing crisis.

Inspired by the success and celebration of Cohort Five’s completed projects, we are honored and excited to announce the artists who have been selected next for Cohort Six of the Public Art Accelerator: Jeremy ‘Sobek’ Harrison, Nelly Kate, Michael Berthaud, and Sarah Brophy. Ranging from backgrounds in aerosol art and graff culture to video game design and light and time based media, we are confident this cohort’s Accelerator projects will be a multi-sensorial experience for all of Boston’s diverse communities.

Welcome, Cohort Six!

Nelly Kate (she/her) is a transdisciplinary artist creating space for public imagination through time-based media, print, and the lens of Queer and Deaf experience. Nelly grew up in the American South, where she established a career in music and sound design. Her early work led her to tour nationally and to share the stage with artists such as tUnE-yArDs, Mirah, Stephen Vitiello, and Angel Olsen. She gradually expanded her engagement with the public beyond performance into installations of oral history projects, interactive sculpture, and itinerant walks.

In 2015, Nelly turned her focus to inaudible sound—exploring captions, sonic visualizations, and haptics. During her MFA candidacy at Cranbrook Academy of Art (2021), she developed a technique for utilizing suminagashi marbling and fluid cymatics to make ‘sound prints’.

She’s currently a resident at Boston Center for the Arts and contributing to a performance directed by Fayen d’Evie for Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Michael Berthaud (he/him) is a 23 year old multimedia artist born and raised in Boston Massachusetts. His introduction to the arts came in the form of designing games alone in his bedroom. When he began working in the game industry as a designer and engineer, he discovered the power of designing rules and its implications on human behavior. From collaborating with brands such as Rovio, to working in small indie studios, Michael has seen the ways in which games of all sizes can not only be profitable, but also culturally impactful. As he continued to gain experience in the art of game design, he began to loathe how contemporary games are trapped inside the confines of a home computer, console, or mobile phone. This created a new found synergy where he began to take the principles of game design and carry them into the public art space.

Jeremy ‘Sobek’ Harrison (he/him) is Boston born and raised. Mattapan, Dorchester has always been home and Sobek accredits Mattapan Square for teaching him everything Hip Hop, especially Graffiti. Already a young illustrator, Sobek started learning aerosol and his love for arts enhanced becoming his passion. His first Graffiti piece was painted in ‘98 although he has been tagging since ‘97, now merging his illustrations and Graffiti into large scale murals of aerosol abstract realism.

Sobek’s passion for the arts, specifically Graffiti, and its positive representation has led him to start Back Against the Wall. The initiative helps the inner-city community make their words and self-portraits visible on a larger scale encouraging the positive power of words and familiar faces. Graffiti is an important part of this mission because it was birthed through rebellious strength motivating a culture to recognize their power.

Sarah Brophy (she/her) is a new media artist exploring tensions in the built environment where western science, the natural world, and technology collide. In her constructed animated worlds she pulls at the strings of her own flawed relationship with the natural environment through the wider lens of human co-dependence with computers. Often searching for what gets lost or gained in the transfer from physical object to intangible pixel, Sarah’s work wrestles with the contradictory feelings of awe and disenchantment with contemporary technology and asks questions about power, agency, and futurity within interwoven organic and synthetic systems.

Sarah’s projects have been exhibited in public art venues including The Berlin Festival of Lights, 150 Media Stream, and ILLUMINUS. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BA in Studio Arts from Bard College. Sarah is also a designer for the architecture firm Perkins&Will.

As in previous years, this interdisciplinary group of artists and creatives was selected by a Boston-sourced jury of experienced public artists, public art administrators, Accelerator alumni, and community leaders. Tasked with the challenge of reviewing (yet another) record-breaking 70+ applications, we are thankful for the generosity, empathy, and careful consideration put forth by Sarah Rodrigo (Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture), Rhea Vedro (artist and Accelerator alum), Silvia López Chavez (artist and new N+T Board member), Ekua Holmes (artist and Accelerator alum), and Mswati Hanks (Turn it Around). The Accelerator program would not be possible without the support and funding by people who believe in the ability for art and local artists to make Boston a better place for everyone, such as Joyce Linde and James and Audrey Foster.

While summer is fleeting and we ready ourselves for a fall full of growth and curiosity, we look forward to overcoming all of the creative (and logistical) challenges of public art making with Cohort Six. We will hone in on the meaning behind their unique artistic practices, explore what they define as success for themselves and for public art, support the conceptual development of their ideas, and share everything we know about the nuts and bolts of budgets, timelines, and project management. Follow us on social media @now_and_there for updates from Cohort Six and to see what they’ll be bringing to a neighborhood near you by October 2024!