Tiny Urban Galleries
Supported by a Transformative Public Art Grant
from the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture
“GOAL: Keep artists in Boston and attract new ones here, recognizing and supporting artists’ essential contribution to creating and maintaining a thriving, healthy, and innovative city.
This goal addresses the spaces that are most important to individual artists: affordable housing and work space. The City understands that meeting artists’ space needs requires innovative approaches to housing and facilities, especially in today’s aggressive real estate market.”
The Boston Creates Cultural Plan, released in 2016, is the culmination of a multi-year effort to identify the unique opportunities and challenges facing the City’s artists and arts organizations. A familiar concern among participants was the severe lack of artist spaces—for living, working, and presenting. This shortage of physical space impedes not only the production of creative works, but also the ability to engage with and grow new audiences. The resulting Plan outlines a number of strategies and tactics to address this fundamental issue.
Over the last two years, the pandemic has highlighted the need for public engagement through art and the outdoors. It’s also called into question our use of public space, not only in response to crisis, but in everyday activities as well. Outdoor programming, sidewalk shopping and dining, street parklets and more have all been incorporated within the fabric of the City—and heartily welcomed by people of all backgrounds. We’ve also seen a significant uptick in use of, and programming within, our parks and other green space. Overall, interventions such as these contribute to sociocultural well-being, citizen equity, environmental justice, and economic empowerment as well.
In 2022, several Tiny Urban Galleries (TUGS) will be deployed in neighborhoods throughout Boston. Sited at public spaces—streetside spaces, empty lots, libraries, or parks—these small, flexible structures will be utilized as studios, galleries, and/or performance venues. At pre-selected times over the course of one month, those invited to participate will open their doors to the public and share their work, creating little pockets of interest and activity throughout the fabric of our City. Imagine intimate workspaces, tiny white-walled galleries, pocket-sized theaters, and more, with each program amplifying and celebrating Boston’s diverse creative community.
Through this innovative, engaging project, together we will enliven our streets and landscapes, create artist opportunities, and foster a more vibrant, equitable, and sustainable arts and culture ecosystem in Boston.
The Tiny Urban Galleries project is supported by a Transformative Public Art grant from the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture.