What's happening in 2024?
CURRENT PROJECTS
Projects in Arlington will focus on commissioning 1 to 3 murals in 2024. Entangled, a collaborative project with artist Michelle Lougee calling attention to the plague of single use plastic, will pop-up in various locations, including Arlington, Cambridge, and Cape Cod. A collaboration with Liz Shepherd and Suzanne Moseley exploring ways to make public art with cyanotype will continue to evolve; look for a pop-up in Wellfleet and an artist-in-residence project in Arlington.
Entangled
A new collaboration with artist Michelle Lougee, Entangled was launched at the 2023 HONK! Festival in Somerville. An activist participatory art project, our goal is to make a 100-foot long rope of single use plastic trash that can be flexibly reconfigured to complement a site or protest action. Bottle caps, containers, packaging and other post-consumer waste are strung on plastic rope -- most likely lost fishing gear -- salvaged from Cape Cod Bay by the Center for Coastal Studies ocean plastic clean-up program. Our goal is to make the devastating quantity of plastic waste visible and tangible, with each plastic item representing a ton of waste dumped in the ocean daily.
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More about Michelle Lougee
Blue Printing: Exploring Cyanotype as Public Art
in 2023 Michelle Lougee and I invited artists Liz Shepherd and Suzanne Moseley to serve as Artists-in-Residence at Magazine Beach in collaboration with Mass Audubon's urban Nature Center in Cambridge on the banks of the Charles River. Shepherd and Moseley created a pop-up tent which could be used to landmark the nature center and promote a series of public workshops. The tent uses photographic and photogram techniques and cyanotype process to celebrate the plants and animals of the Charles River Watershed. We are taking the tent and workshops to new locations in 2024!
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More info about Liz Shepherd
More info about Suzanne Moseley
Murals
I am organizing several outdoor murals for ArtsArlington, carried out in collaboration with the Arlington Chamber of Commerce and Arlington Center for the Arts. Photo: our inaugural project by Alex Cook in Arlington Heights, painted with participation of 50+ community volunteers.
ONGOING: Remembrance of Climate Futures
with Tom Starr
I worked with colleague Rachel Oliveri, Coordinator of the Arlington Public Schools Sustainability Initiatives, to develop a youth-led version of Northeastern Professor Tom Starr's regional public art project, Remembrance of Climate Futures. 12 High school interns created 23 aluminum markers that imagine future impacts of the climate crisis on the landscape and community where they live. These are installed on locations throughout Arlington, MA.
Based on science & policy research, consultation with community activists, and lively discussion, the interns envisioned events such as:
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Flooding of the Amelia Earhart Dam creating Arlington's first climate refugees.
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Construction of the first Support Center to help with the emotional and psychological impacts of climate change and the first Clean Air Shelter offering relief from air pollution.
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Planting of hundreds of trees along Mass Avenue; transformation of grass lawns into resilient native plant sanctuaries; town-wide composing; and transitions to renewable energy for transportation and buildings.
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The first Knotweed Cafe serving safely foraged invasive plants and the arrival of the formerly southern pine beetle in Menotomy Rocks Park.
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Free bus service and a comprehensive K-12 climate curriculum in the public schools.
Several of the interns have become passionate advocates for climate action. Watch their speeches at a December, 2022 celebration for the project here, together with a project overview by artist Tom Starr.
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Read more about CLIMATE FUTURES/ARLINGTON on the awesome project website built by the interns.
Funded by a grant from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and organized by ArtsArlington in collaboration with the Arlington Public Schools and the Arlington Department of Planning and Community Development.
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WE'RE ON TV!
Arlington Community Media's "Talk of the Town" covered Climate Futures in a comprehensive studio show with three interns, Cecily and Rachel Oliveri; Tom Starr is interviewed separate at home. Watch here:
Climate Futures/Talk of the Town
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