City of Boston Selects 11 Locals for New Artist-in-Residence Program

Boston AIR participants will collaborate with representatives from city departments. / Photo via Shutterstock

In July, Mayor Marty Walsh announced the creation of the City of Boston’s first artist-in-residence program, funded in part by a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Today, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, the city’s collaborator on the project, announced the selection of 11 local artists who will be the first to participate in the new program, which is called Boston AIR.

Each of the artists will receive a $1,000 stipend while collaborating with liaisons from city departments, including Public Works, Property and Construction Management, Parks and Recreation, Veterans’ Services, Commission for Persons with Disabilities, Education, Policy, Neighborhood Development, Women’s Advancement, Elderly Commission, and the Boston Police Department.

Together, the artists and their city counterparts will attend lectures and workshops while co-designing project proposals. Artists with the three winning proposals will each receive a $20,000 stipend and six-month residency within a city department to further develop their projects.

The 11 artists were chosen from more than 100 submissions by a jury of seven arts professionals and representatives from the City of Boston and MassArt. The group, whose specialties include both the visual and performing arts, consists of Peter DiMuro, Rashin Fahandej, Pat Falco, L’Merchie Frazier, Georgie Friedman, Shaw Pong Liu, Roberto Mighty, Caleb Neelon, Melissa Nussbaum Freeman, Liz Nofziger, and Juan Obando.

Boston AIR is one of the first programs launched as part of Boston Creates, a cultural planning effort led by Mayor Walsh and Julie Burros, the city’s Chief of Arts and Culture.