The Practical value of a creative city: Boston City Hall’s Artists-In-Residence

Karin Goodfellow may have the best job title around.

For many years, I’ve thought the coolest thing to have on your business card would be ‘Ravenmaster’ (an official position, thanks to the Tower of London). But ‘Director of Transformative Art & Monuments’ might knock it from top spot.

Even better, Karin came up with it herself.

Previously the Director of Public Art at Boston City Hall (a position she also still holds), Karin created the new role to allow her to focus on establishing a ‘more socially responsive, energetic approach to public art through a participatory project’. After public discussions around monument removal in Boston from 2017 onwards, Karin felt there was both a public desire, and a need, for art that is more responsive to current social dialogue, as well as for more experimental art. The invitation to apply for a Mellon Foundation grant became the multi-year Un-Monument | De-Monument | Re-Monument: Transforming Boston project, commissioning temporary monuments for the city, along with satellite community events, such as conversations on the Common.

Mel and I have already visited one of these art works. Arriving in Boston with a free Sunday, I combine my love of art with my love of plants, and sniff out Kate Farrington’s Future Monument to the Trees of the Boston Public Garden. An online map tours you through the garden’s grounds, pausing at certain trees to listen to audio of a poem or story written by community members. I find the peace of the public garden, coupled with these often personal reflections, both moving and restorative.

I’m new to Boston but it already seems to me to be a city well-supplied with public art. Karin’s surprised to hear me say this - she wants to do much more - but I’m hard pressed to think of a public building in Australia that has at least five distinct galleries in it, like Boston City Hall. Mel and I have toured them all before my meeting; they run the gamut of everything from a photographic gallery by school students to a vivid and sophisticated solo exhibition. 

Karin works in the Mayor’s Office of Art and Culture, signalling the current Mayor’s vision and commitment to the arts. Arts investment in Boston wasn’t always as significant as it has become, she tells me. About ten years ago, political change coincided with public demand for more art, led by groups of artists who mobilised to make representations to various candidates. In addition to the political will available, Karin’s programs have had some success with grants, allowing them to fund pilots of programs which can later be successfully rolled out.

Karin is visionary, but also practical. ‘Depending on the program,’ she says, ‘I think a lot of it seems very straightforward, why it’s worthwhile right now. In the public art program, we have a series of murals at public schools. I think that seems very straightforward to people, why colourful murals at schools across the city is a positive experience for the neighbours and school communities.’ I point out that it wouldn’t be straightforward everywhere in Australia, where the distinction between street art and graffiti isn’t always understood. Karin says that doesn’t sound unfamiliar to her, but there’s been a lot of growth in the past ten years. That gives me hope.

The real reason I asked to speak with Karin, however, was the city’s Artist in Residence (AIR) program. The website describes it as follows: ‘In the program, we bring together artists and City employees that share deep investments in community and social justice. The artists bring artistic expertise and experience with creative approaches. Our City partners provide subject matter expertise and experience with existing City systems. Artists learn more about government, while City departments learn about creative problem solving. They co-design projects that test new approaches to City policies and processes. They explore how City initiatives impact the experience of all Bostonians. Projects are often responsive to the social and political context of that year.’ Neither Karin nor I are aware of a program similar, in a city hall or other civic department. 

Karin explains there have been five iterations of AIR; it’s currently on pause but she’s hoping to re-launch it soon. Usually the process begins with a call out to City Hall departments for staff members who might want to be involved, and finding out subjects they’d be willing to work on and devote staff time to. A call-out to artists follows, then the artist and City Hall staff member work together to co-design a project around the issues City Hall has identified.

Sometimes other community members can be introduced to a project, but as Karin points out, both artists and City Hall staff are also community members, so there’s always a community perspective in each project from the start. Bringing in other forms of community engagement works best if artists or City Hall staff can capitalise on existing relationships that either the artist or the staff member have, rather than trying to forge a new relationship once the project is running. 

One exception to this was artist Karen Young and her Taiko drumming project. She worked with ‘Older and Bolder’, a women’s group from a local community centre. While Karen’s relationship with the group was new and she worked hard to develop it, the women already had relationships with each other and with people at the community centre where they met. During their work together, it emerged the women had concerns around a dangerous crosswalk, and worked with Karen and the City’s transport department to create an event that drew attention to the issue.

‘The thinking, at least for myself, as it evolved, has really been that there are community members who want to do this utilitarian work,’ Karin explains. ‘They’re already interested in using their work to achieve a purpose. People who work in City Hall, who are running things here, many have really good intentions and want to improve their community. They want creative solutions; they may not be able to come up with them or implement them themselves all the time, but they have knowledge of the systems within here. Then I’d be out in the arts community and see exhibitions about the work that we’re doing at City Hall, but there’s no connection. So the hope was really that there are artists who wanted to be activists, and those are the ones who are good for the program.’

After five years and many successes, it’s not surprising that Karin has identified a few areas for improvement. She’s proud of the ‘very interesting projects and propositions’ they’ve come up with, but feels the next phase of the program is for projects to have a long-term impact on policy. I ask what it’d take for this to happen, expecting a conversation about bureaucratic red tape, but Karin’s answer is ‘capacity’. As with all artistic projects, every project requires extra personal attention, which makes it harder to spend time thinking through whatever the next steps might be. Not all projects thrive, but not all will, as they’re experiments, Karin says - but of the ones that do, she’d like to see their impact reach further.

This leads to the question of supporting artists and City Hall members in their work, particularly if they’re in direct contact with community members and community stories. Karin points out that artists bring their own assumptions to the work, including the idea that City Hall can be impersonal, but, she says, ‘it’s still just other people’, who may be equally unqualified to deal with difficult situations and subjects. ‘The city itself is not an endless bucket of skill-sets and capacity, that I think sometimes externally people want it to be,’ Karin says.

It’s a good point, and perhaps one of the outcomes of the AIR program is to challenge generalisations about ‘the City’ and its capacity. And just as the City has limits, so do artists, especially when they meet or work with community members who’ve experienced trauma. ‘Artists need to understand they can’t fix things,’ says Karin. ‘They need to be able to have that clarity, and offer that clarity to other people, and the same is true of City staff.’  And while it might be possible to consider hiring appropriate staff to consult or help on these issues, Karin points out that providing emotional support is not what the AIR program is there to do. Negotiating between people’s (including artists’) expectations of what the City can and can’t achieve sounds to me like a big part of the work.

Ultimately the Boston City Hall AIR program, with its wealth of new art and creative civic solutions, has several benefits beyond the well-known emotional and psychological benefits of participating in the arts. It helps residents of the City understand City Hall better. It helps City Hall staff develop creative solutions to local problems and connect more deeply with residents. But post-program evaluations show another surprising outcome: community participants in the AIR program felt better able to advocate for themselves, either individually or as a group. Not just because of increased contact with and understanding of City Hall, but because of increased confidence brought about through their artistic collaborations.

It’s yet more evidence that the arts works in surprising ways, especially if it’s not siloed. It’s certainly infiltrating Boston City. One final question for Karin is about her current major project, Un-Monument. Why are all these commissions only temporary monuments?

After half an hour in Karin’s company, I’m unsurprised by the very practical answer - it’s a great way to see what works and what doesn’t, and also much easier to get permissions for temporary monuments than permanent ones. 

There’s a good chance some artworks will have a life beyond Un-Monument, by which point they’ll already be tried, tested and beloved.

Karin Goodfellow and I enjoy the Boston city skyline from Boston City Hall