MAPC & NEFA
Arts & Culture Discussion Series
Cross-sector convenings and communities of practice for planners, artists, culture bearers,
and community leaders.
Since 2017, MAPC’s Arts & Culture Department has partnered with the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) to organize a series of discussions designed to broaden the understanding of how art can contribute to planning work, and provide new entry points for planners, artists, and cultural practitioners to work together on planning and community development projects. The series aims to:
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- Share key concepts and practices that are used in public art initiatives to improve arts and culture literacy and bridge the gaps between funders, artists, and planners.
- Facilitate connections between planners and creative practitioners who have the skills to contribute to municipal planning and community development projects.
- Build cohesion among artists, arts administrators, and municipal planners, and seed cross-sector relationships that can advance creative community development in Metropolitan Boston.
The series launched in 2017 under the direction of Carolyn Lewenberg, MAPC’s first Artist-In-Residence, with a focus on innovative approaches to planning challenges that emerge from artist leadership. The series continued in 2020 under the direction of Emma Boast, MAPC Arts and Culture Fellow, with a focus on public art and public history as vehicles for social change.
Upcoming Events
Sign up for our Arts and Culture mailing list to receive announcements about future events.
Public Art,
Public Memory
How do monuments and memorials shape our experience of public space—and how we define whom “the public” includes? How can we reimagine the systems that have produced and maintained these public symbols of celebration and oppression? And how can artists and public art help us reframe the past and present to create more inclusive futures?
In early 2020, MAPC’s Arts & Culture team and the Public Art team at the New England Foundation for the Arts planned a series of events about the meaning and future of monuments in Greater Boston. Then the COVID-19 pandemic put those plans on hold. Just a few months later, the question of how Americans memorialize the past became one of the key touchpoints of the year.
In fall 2020, Public Art, Public Memory re-launched as a three-part, online series featuring artists and cultural organizers working at the intersection of creativity, history, and community-building. The series explores the role that planners, artists, and community leaders can play in cultivating more just and inclusive public spaces through public art and collective memory.
Learn more and check out recordings and resources from the series here.
Public Art, Public Memory was co-organized by the Arts & Culture Department at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Public Art Department at New England Foundation for the Arts, and co-sponsored by the Design Studio for Social Intervention.
Whose Public?
Planning and Placemaking for Welcoming Public Spaces
Public spaces are not neutral. They are steeped in histories of exclusion and oppression. For many who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color, public space is anything but public.
What does it mean to shape public spaces that support the rights of BIPOC to be, thrive, express, and connect? What lessons can we learn from the nation’s current reckoning with racism as we consider the future of public spaces in Greater Boston?
In summer 2020, MAPC teamed up with the Design Studio for Social Intervention and New England Foundation for the Arts to explore the role that planners, artists, and organizers can play in promoting spatial justice in Greater Boston and beyond. Culminating in a series of artist-led discussions, the collaboration considered what it means to decenter whiteness in the planning, programming, and design of public spaces.
Learn more and check out recordings and resources from the series here.
Whose Public? was co-organized by the Arts & Culture Department at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the Design Studio for Social Intervention, and the Public Art Department at New England Foundation for the Arts.
Past Events
The inaugural 2017-2018 series was curated and facilitated by MAPC’s first Artist-In-Residence, Carolyn Lewenberg, and highlighted the role that artists can play in generating solutions to complex challenges in planning and community development.
About
New England Foundation for the Arts
The New England Foundation for the Arts invests in artists and communities and fosters equitable access to the arts, enriching the cultural landscape in New England and the nation. NEFA accomplishes this by granting funds to artists and cultural organizations; connecting them to networks and knowledge-building opportunities; and analyzing their economic contributions. NEFA serves as a regional partner for the National Endowment for the Arts, New England’s state arts agencies, and private foundations. Learn more at www.nefa.org
Stay Tuned
Sign up for our Arts & Culture mailing list to receive announcements about future events in the series.
Questions?
For more information, please contact Emma Boast, Arts & Culture Fellow, at [email protected].