Artist Emily Rose, whom I stayed with for the award ceremony for WBUR’s 2024 Makers, honoring creatives of color, shared hope when I talked about the societal bleakness of incessant global conflicts. She remarked that our ancestors have gone through worse. It struck a chord with me.
Instead of having a pessimistic attitude, she said that she’s preparing to build, make and be in the new world. It reminded me that imagining otherwise is the essence of making and artistry. With the togetherness of community all thinking otherwise, building reciprocity and cultivating solidarity in these times, would establish an unshakable flourishing. Rose’s words resonated with me as a provocation of world-building. As a 2024 WBUR Maker, I look forward with hope and manifest creative ways to exist in the new world by mentoring students, upholding my artist community through reciprocal relationships and challenging institutional frameworks.
My hopes for the Boston art scene are that ASL Night at the MFA influences many other cultural centers to build that into the fabric of their operations and that there are permanent public installations by contemporary artists — many city-wide initiatives are temporary, which can diminish their radicality. Un-Monument by the City of Boston, Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Boston Public Art Triennial — which could create a triennial of only Boston people or folks with connections to it as a place and still have so much richness — lay the groundwork, but permanence would reclaim landscapes of oppres- sion. What I mean by that is monuments to the colonial empire have been given the opportunity to sit with us and “preside” over Wampanoag and Nipmuc land. To undo that legacy, works by local makers that are community affirmations should stay up longer, if not forever. I would also recommend public art and performance activation of the monument “Emancipation” by prolific Black sculptor Meta Warrick Fuller in the South End.