Un-monument: Temporary Monument Projects
We’re commissioning artworks from groundbreaking artists and partnering with celebrated local arts organizations to bring temporary monuments to neighborhoods across Boston.
With temporary monuments, we can experiment with different ideas and forms to inform our future public art and commemorative landscape. In 2024, we released a call to artists and selected 16 grantees – eight temporary monument projects and eight research and development projects – whose projects provoked ideas and directions for monument making.
We are also working with five curatorial partners to create opportunities for more perspectives to join the conversation about what monuments could be in Boston. Commissioning local organizations to expand upon the Un-monument program supports Boston’s creative ecosystem and allows for participation in this dialogue at multiple levels.
In November 2024, we’ll be re-opening the call for artists and accepting proposals for 2025 Un-monument projects. Follow us on social media and sign up for our newsletter to be the first to hear about upcoming opportunities!
Discover the 2024 projects below.
Commissioned Artist Projects
Curatorial Partners and Projects
Emerson Contemporary, co-curated by Leonie Bradbury and Shana Garr
- Regarding Monuments: Visualizing Hidden Histories
- off the pedestal by Laura Anderson Barbata, New Red Order (NRO), Paula J. Wilson
- I have asked myself: "Can a sentence be haunted? And if so, by what?" by Kameelah Janan Rasheed,
- THIS IS AMERICA by Louis Cameron
- Transforming Boston: Hidden in Plain Sight with Sue Murad, Clareese Hill, and Elisa Hamilton
North American Indian Center of Boston, co-curated by Janelle Pocowatchit and Jean-Luc Pierite
- Mother Earth Back: Landscapes of the Southwest by Geraldine Barney
- Portals: Mending in the Multiverse by Mea Johnson
- IndigiMarket: Indigenous Artist Exposition curated by Mea Johnson, Gloria Colon, and Janelle Pocowatchit
- Boston Indigenous Public Space Initiative, Meet and Greet on Cultural Use, curated by Robert Peters
Boston Public Art Triennial, curated by Jasper Sanchez with Kate Gilbert
- TORII by Matthew Okazaki
- The Resurrection of Mark, Phillis, & Phebe by Ifé Franklin
- Gulf Stream by Hugh Hayden
Pao Arts Center, curated by Lani Asunción
- Imagine Safety by Joanna Tam
- Abundance Among Us - Dragon & Friends by Maria Fong, Sheila Novak, Wen-hao Tien
- Ping Pong Tables of Chinatown: A Celebration of Diversity and Nature by Jennifer Duan, Stephanie Li, Kathlyn Lipton
- The Thousand Bloom – A Chrysanthemum Grows in Chinatown by Anita Yip
- Healing Tofu Tricycle Performance & Workshops by Ying Ye
National Center of Afro-American Artists, curated by Barry Gaither
- Cancel Violence: Artists Speak by Paul Goodnight, Robert “ProBlak” Gibbs, Robert Stull, L’Merchie Frazier, Laurence Pierce, Shea Justice, Hakim Raquib, and Johnetta Tinker.
Related Pages
This multi-year program, funded by a $3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, will bring temporary public art...
Join us at The Embrace for a series of public conversions about democracy and justice, followed by community dinners to...
As part of "Un-monument | Re-monument | De-Monument: Transforming Boston,” we’re providing training opportunities in AR for...
Public art in Boston is vibrant and transformative. As the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Boston Art Commission...
