Making it Public 2022

Municipal Track  

Candida Gonzalez  

A queer, non-binary mixed Puerto Rican native of South Minneapolis, Cándida González (they/them) is an artist, healer, teacher, organizer and brujx. They approach their work by centering at the intersection of art, activism, healing and personal/community empowerment. They are deeply invested in the concept of using art and community design as tools to wage love and healing. Currently Gonzalez facilitates nationwide the Making it Public workshop series for Forecast Public Art for new and emerging public artists, participates in select local arts and healing initiatives and creates mixed-media jewelry/talismans under the name Las Ranas Jewelry.  

Carolina Prieto became the Assistant Director of Arts and Culture in December 2021 after working on MAPC’s community engagement team for five years. In her previous role as Community Engagement Manager in MAPC’s Department of Strategic Initiatives, Ms. Prieto developed and implemented community engagement strategies using creative techniques, with a special focus on including historically underrepresented groups. As a skilled trainer and facilitator, she developed Equitable and Inclusive Community Engagement trainings for staff and community partners. 

Carolina has supported various arts and culture planning projects including the Arlington Arts and Culture Plan , Boston's Latin Quarter Cultural District Plan , and the Beverly Arts District 2.0 Plan. She also ran an artist incubator space in Boston to support 25 artists for 18 months. Before joining MAPC, Ms. Prieto worked as a community engagement coordinator for the Boston Public Health Commission’s Office of Racial Equity and Health Improvement, where she developed a commission-wide equitable community engagement plan for internal and external stakeholders. She has also worked in the youth development and in the non-profit space. 

 
Carolyn Cole 

After a public-facing career in the performing arts, Carolyn changed gears to take on a more supportive role in the creative sector, immersing herself into local community efforts. During her time with the Downtown Lynn Cultural District she launched and managed the City’s Public Arts Commission and co-led Lynn’s efforts as a Cultural Compact City, developing a cohesive partnership and shared creative vision for Lynn with support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She partnered on a four-year collaborative process, alongside the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, to establish what is now deemed the new regional model for municipal-artist collaboration intended to develop a community-driven creative community placekeeping infrastructure. Carolyn navigated this work while fulfilling her role as Cultural Coordinator & CDBG Sub-Recipient Administrator for the City of Lynn’s Department of Community Development. Through her work with Creative Collective, Carolyn consults with municipalities statewide, providing creative and equitable strategies for community and economic development opportunities and advocating for the support and inclusion of the local creative workforce unique to each area.  

Carolyn attests that in every capacity, accessibility and empathy are vital components to the implementation of her work and that people are essential to its success.  

Municipal Track  

Lillian Hsu has been Director of Public Art and Exhibitions since 2006 at Cambridge Arts, the arts agency for the City of Cambridge, where she manages the Percent-for-Art program and conceives, facilitates, and implements temporary projects in the public domain.  Lillian directs exhibitions and educational projects in the City’s Gallery 344 that aim to deepen public understanding of contemporary issues related to the public domain. In addition, Lillian works with numerous partners in the public and private sectors to support, advocate for, and implement initiatives that bring the arts in a variety of forms into daily life for all.   

In 2019 Lillian initiated an exhibition, Untold Possibilities at the Last Minute, featuring ten artists’ public projects addressing climate change. In 2017 Lillian successfully led a team of artists in a proposal that was awarded a grant from ArtPlace America to form a radio/podcast studio in the Port neighborhood of Cambridge for building employable sound production skills in young adults. In 2014 Lillian created Let the Public Play (NEA supported), part of multiple efforts with city departments to build a more playful city. These multi-departmental efforts resulted in an Edgar Klugman Award from the Play, Policy and Practice Interest Forum of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. From 2002 to 2005 Lillian administered education and outreach programming, including Public Art ACTS, in collaboration with the Underground Railway Theatre, (NEA supported) and Public Art/Moving Site (NEFA supported), in partnership with New Haven, CT and Bellows Falls, VT, which was awarded one of the best public art projects of 2006 by the Americans for the Arts/Public Art Network.   

Lillian is also an artist (www.lillianhsu.net) and a resident of Salem, MA. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Wellesley College.  

Annis Whitlow Sengupta, Director of Arts and Culture, joined MAPC in 2017 with the launch of the Arts & Culture Department at the agency. Annis has helped build the department’s core areas of technical planning support including arts and culture planning, cultural district planning, cultural asset mapping, creative placemaking, creative community development, and cultural economic development. She leads workshops in creative placemaking and coordinates cross-sector conversations that connect arts and culture to other planning disciplines. Annis leads the development of an arts and culture data strategy at the agency and conducts research on regulations, policies, and programs to strengthen the policy and planning conditions that can help arts and culture to thrive. 

Annis is currently leading a creative placemaking project for the Downtown Lynn Cultural District in Lynn, Massachusetts that will culminate in public art and a creative placemaking strategy and launching an arts and culture strategy plan for the Hudson Business Improvement District in Hudson, Massachusetts. She recently completed a cultural district plan for Boston’s Latin Quarter, which brought together an interdisciplinary team with expertise in cultural planning, community engagement, and economic development. In addition, Annis provides project support for Historic and Cultural Resources sections of master plans, is supervising a project to map creative economic activity in the region, and directs a variety of arts and culture data initiatives to support municipal and regional project work and expand arts and culture data resources for the region. Annis also contributes content to the Arts & Planning Toolkit based on completed project work. 

While at MAPC, Annis has worked on cultural plans for Arlington, the Beverly Arts District in Beverly, and creative placemaking in Rockland. She has supported or led four creative placemaking workshops. In addition, she coordinated a learning journey to Seattle, Washington in 2018 attended by 25 local, regional, and state staff and elected and appointed officials, who witnessed the impact of integrating arts, culture, and equity into planning practices. 

Prior to joining MAPC, Annis worked for over eight years for Community Partners Consultants, a locally based consultancy where she was a Senior Planner. Her clients at Community Partners included municipalities and arts organizations. Her cultural planning expertise includes managing an innovative arts district master planning process in Beverly and a study of non-profit facilities of public accommodation along the Boston waterfront. Annis earned her PhD from MIT; her dissertation examined culture and public space. Her research reconstructed the history of ethnic parades in Chicago, Illinois and examined how cultural events in public space can build community identity, increase political access, spur design interventions, and promote economic development. 

Annis holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies and Planning and a Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Yale University. Annis’s doctoral research explored the intersection of community identity and placemaking through ethnic parades in Chicago, Illinois. 

Areas of expertise: Arts and cultural planning, community and land use planning, zoning, visioning and strategy development, relationship building, cultural asset mapping, graphic design, urban design, accessible public participation, and waterfront planning. 

Municipal Track  

Claudia Zarazua  

Claudia joined MAPC as a Regional Arts & Culture Planner in April 2020. She has been working at the intersection of art, public space, and community for the past 12 years. Claudia relocated to the Boston area after completing her Masters of City Planning at the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania in 2016, where she was the recipient of the David Crane Urban Design Excellence Award. Since then, she has worked as a planning consultant, program associate for the Climate Smart Cities program at the Trust for Public Land, and planner for the Town of Wellesley. In that role, she led the historic preservation efforts and supported the implementation of the town’s unified plan. More recently, she has been a consultant on design guidelines and wayfinding for small municipalities. 

Before attending graduate school, Claudia was a project manager for the Department of Arts and Culture for the City of San Antonio, Texas. In that role, she oversaw a portfolio of more than 20 public art projects amounting to a budget of $5.9 million of capital improvements. 

As a researcher, Claudia has worked for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in their International Land Conservation Network and the Penn Institute for Urban Research supporting their Global Urban Commons initiative. She has studied informal settlements and waterfront development in Mumbai, India and historic preservation in the public realm in Suzhou, China. She holds a B.S. in Architecture from the University of Texas at San Antonio. 

Claudia’s interests include the production of public space, art as an anchor of public life, productive landscapes, urban storytelling, inclusive representation in placemaking, and historic preservation. 

She lives in Cambridge with her husband and their baby boy. They enjoy traveling (when permitted) and tending to their vegetable garden. 

Archana Menon 

Archana Menon joined the Arts and Culture Department as a Fellow in November 2021. Prior to joining MAPC, she worked as the Community Engagement Coordinator for the Natick Center Cultural District, where she was actively involved in arts and culture planning and supporting small, often creative businesses in the area. Archana also executed the Natick Center Creative Placemaking Strategy and developed the Artist in Residency program in Natick. She brings an interest in the intersection of arts, equity, and economic development to the fellowship. 

Archana has recently completed the Executive Program in Arts and Culture Strategy offered by the University of Pennsylvania, in partnership with National Arts Strategies, and holds a BA in Management Studies from the University of Mumbai and a Master’s in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh. 

A practicing performance artist specializing in the Indian classical dance form, Bharatanatyam, she has performed at various locations in India and the US and continues to pursue her training under a guru here in the Greater Boston area. Archana is also a Board member of TEDxNatick and helps curate the annual event that highlights leading thinkers and practitioners in Technology, Entertainment, and Design.