THE SHIPPING CONTAINERS ARE JUST THE BEGINNING.
THE ARTSCOMMONS IS AN IDEA. A COMMUNITY RESOURCE.
A HUB FOR CIVIC ENGAGEMENT.
THE ARTSCOMMONS
The ArtsCommons is an outdoor, flexible, multi-purpose art-maker space able to support performances, installations, exhibitions, and civic engagement.
It brings to life an interdisciplinary, shared-resource, "pop-up" approach to art in public places. Are you an artist? An organizer? An educator? A passionate citizen? Do you have an idea and need a space? Work with us to make the ArtsCommons your space for your public and your places...and beyond.
This video, showing the ArtsCommons at the 2017 Figment Festival on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, captures the project's central spirit as a catalyst for engagement, interaction, and collaboration, and the role of art in driving each.
Video by Anthony Tiriti Tran & Feda Eid, 2017
JP PORCHFEST 2016
A conceptual prototype for the AC was deployed as part of Jamaica Plain's Porchfest in July 2016, making use of shipping pallets and foam, rather than steel shipping containers, to serve as “connection points"
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Ad-hoc performance spaces for Rashin Fahandez's In-Sight: Con Moto
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Participatory art-making with LMerchie Frazier
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Civic engagement via “chalk talks”
FIGMENT BOSTON 2017
The first ArtsCommons shipping container made its debut as part of Boston's Figment Festival.
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Four artists...over 400 participants
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Visual artist L'Merchie Frazier asking participants to "Reimagine your community," with resulting images contributing to a community art piece
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Inside the container, people's written/aural responses to the prompt "What's next...?" transformed by sound artist Nate Tucker, visual artist Feda Eid, and video artist Anthony Tran
WENTWORTH RAMP PROGRAM 2017
A special summer initiative at Wentworth Institute of Technology engaging teams of newly-admitted students from Boston-area schools in projects that benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach -- including design, engineering, planning. The ArtsCommons was the focus of one such team, where participants brought multiple points of view to an understanding of project's possibilities and challenges.
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The project served as a "collection point" for all participants, regardless of discipline.
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Multiple points of view served to generate ideas for the ArtsCommons' deployment at a variety of sites,
WENTWORTH DESIGN STUDIO 2017
Thanks to a Presidential EPIC Mini-Grant from Wentworth Institute of Technology, the ArtsCommons became a "real life client" for a Senior Architecture Studio taught by Professor Rob Trumbour.
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Students created a "kit of parts," moveable and easily manipulated accessories, that can provide modular public art spaces.
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Students developed prototypes, with input from local artists and others, that enabled them to modify the existing containers (provided by Eagle Leasing) to support a broad range of activities including music, visual art, spoken word, projection art, and performance.
FIGMENT BOSTON 2019
ArtsCommons as makers' spaces:
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Making street art with Alex Dunn and Allida Warn...
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Making mural art with Nate Swain...
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Giving voice to everyone, no matter the age, no matter the size.
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Definitely doing together what can't be done separately.
WHAT'S NEXT?
The ArtsCommons has the potential to become anything we envision it to be -
working with artists, with your neighborhood, with your community.
Creating answers to the question: What can we do together that we can’t do separately?
If you have an idea for the next ArtsCommons appearance, please let us know!
