The Barr Foundation | Building a Stronger Civic & Public Arts Ecosystem across Massachusetts
The Barr Arts & Creativity Program at Barr to unearth key trends, opportunities, and strategies to promote growth of arts in public and civic realms across the Commonwealth. Art in the public realm in Massachusetts is experiencing a rebirth, thanks to slowly loosening restrictions, a wide variety of project experimentation by artists and nonprofits, and new funding programs. Despite the tacit knowledge about how beneficial public art experiences are to healthy and vibrant communities, organizations, leaders, and artists continue to struggle to survive and evolve. This research charted opportunities to realign can be targeted based on where there is momentum, need, and opportunity. Among other topics, we focused on how public art can cease to contribute to housing and economic displacement of communities of color and working class communities, how arts organizations are responding to the pandemic, economic recession, and racial justice upheavals, and more.
Research was completed in collaboration with Chelsea Bruck Bennouna and Deidra Montgomery. For more information, get in touch.
The Freedom Wall, Buffalo, NY