Making It Public
Making It Public (MIP) for Massachusetts Municipalities was a training program inspired by Forecast Public Art (FPA) and co-designed by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council's (MAPC) Arts and Culture Department and The New England Foundation for the Arts' (NEFA) Public Arts Team. The program ran from 2022 through 2025, training 36 municipalities across four cohorts.
The curriculum incorporated the use of grant agreements as defined in Section 2 of MGL Chapter 30B and trained municipalities in practices to commission public art that are in alignment with the principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability in public procurement.
Program Evaluation
Evaluation report coming soon!
In 2025, NEFA and MAPC paused the training program, and NEFA hired Abbey Judd, formerly employed by the MAPC Arts& Culture Department, to assess the value and impact of the Making It Public for MA Municipalities program by summarizing the outcomes of participating in the program and identifying opportunities to improve the program's structure. The evaluation also set out to catalogue successful practices in the field of public art procurement and provide recommendations for restructuring the course and grantmaking structure. The evaluation concluded that there is value in providing resources, templates, and trainings, along with a need to expand the conversation in order to better support municipal staff as they navigate broader obstacles. It also provided recommendations for how to better align the program with municipal capacity and resources and best practices in the field.
Questions?
Please contact Kim Szeto, Program Director, Public Art at NEFA ([email protected]) or Annis Sengupta, Director, Arts & Culture at Metropolitan Area Planning Council ([email protected]).
Program Overview
Through a five-session virtual workshop series, Making it Public covered practical and tactical subject matters for administrators at all stages of their career facilitating public art, such as stakeholder considerations, community engagement, preparing a call-for-artists, equitable selection processes, contracting, and more. Sessions included guest public art professionals, adding a depth of knowledge about the field of public art, the profession, and its contemporary issues.
Through Making it Public and funding artists through municipalities, NEFA aimed to foster a community of practice that is inspiring more vibrant and just public spaces and culture through public artmaking across MA.
To learn more about NEFA’s vision and values for public art, visit NEFA’s website.
A parallel workshop series geared towards New England artists continues be offered simultaneously by NEFA and FPA, equipping artists in the New England region to be better prepared for responding to calls for temporary public art projects.
For more information: https://www.nefa.org/MakingitPublic
Program Elements
Each cohort was required to:
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- Participate in the biweekly virtual training workshop series in the spring of year 1.
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- Administer a Call for Temporary Public Art by the end of year 1. Each participating municipality was eligible to receive a grant up to $10,000 or $15,000 from NEFA to fund artists selected through the Call for Temporary Public Art process.
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- Support the selected artist(s) throughout the process, implementation, and celebration of the public art project (e.g. permits, connecting with other municipal departments, etc.) by the end of year 2.
Cities and Towns trained through Making it Public, 2022 – 2025
| Acton | Beverly | Concord | Greenfield | Montague | Revere |
| Amherst | Brockton | Devens | Holyoke | Natick | Salem |
| Andover | Chelmsford | Erving | Lowell | New Bedford | Somerville |
| Ashfield | Chelsea | Everett | Lynn | Northfield | Southbridge |
| Attleboro | Clinton | Fitchburg | Malden | Peabody | Watertown |
| Belchertown | Cohasset | Gloucester | Middleborough | Pittsfield | Worcester |