Open Call for Artists for Round 2 of UN-MONUMENT | RE-MONUMENT | DE-MONUMENT: TRANSFORMING BOSTON

What is a monument? Who do you choose to memorialize? How can public spaces reflect what is important to you?

The Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture is collaborating with artists, local cultural organizations, and community members to imagine ways of commemorating the people, places, and events that are important to your communities.

The Basics

For the second year of Un-monument, the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture, via the Boston Art Commission, is commissioning temporary monuments from groundbreaking artists.

Through partnerships with artists and celebrated cultural organizations, Un-monument is presented through a series of interconnected activations including public art, free public talks at The Embrace with the Hutchins Center, writing with the Boston Art Review, and hands-on workshops at Emerson Contemporary.

The Un-monument initiative includes six curatorial approaches to commissioning temporary monuments across the City. Some Un-monument temporary monuments will be selected through this open call to artists led by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture. Others are the result of direct commissions by five organizations serving as curatorial partners: Boston Public Art Triennial, Emerson Contemporary, National Center of Afro-American Artists, North American Indian Center of Boston, and Pao Arts Center.

This open call ensures that this opportunity is available to all artists. With multiple curators, we hope to create opportunities for more perspectives to join the conversation. Commissioning local organizations also supports Boston’s creative ecosystem and allows for participation in this dialogue at multiple levels.

Open Call: Two Artist Opportunities
In this Call to Artists, Cutlural Counsel presents two distinct opportunities for artists. First, they are looking for proposals from artists or artist-led teams for new temporary monuments, as well as “un-monuments” that are socially responsive and transform public places to reflect the city’s cultural vibrancy in dialogue with Boston’s collection of existing monuments during summer and fall of 2025. All temporary monuments must all be free and accessible to the public in Boston. Projects may be proposed in any City of Boston neighborhood. The second opportunity is to take a Projection Mapping Artist Workshop hosted by Emerson Contemporary.

→ Opportunity 1: Temporary Monuments

Source of Funding: Public Art Revolving Fund, with the possibility of using other sources depending on the project.
Award Amount per Grant: Grants will be awarded in 4 different budget tiers. Please see below for additional details:

Tier One: $9,999 or less

Budgets under $9,999 will fund artist fees and artwork fabrication, installation, maintenance, de-installation costs, and related programming for projects of smaller scale or shorter duration, such as new media projects, social practice projects, smaller murals, and brief interventions.

Tier Two: $10,000-$30,000

Budgets above $10,000 will fund artist fees and artwork fabrication, installation, maintenance, de-installation costs, and any related programming, for projects of medium scale or a mid-range duration, such as medium-sized murals and interventions.

Tier Three: $30,000-$60,000

Budgets above $30,000 will fund artist fees and artwork fabrication, installation, maintenance, de-installation costs, and any related programming for projects of medium to large scale or with a recurring series of programming. At this tier we encourage at least one community engagement partnership during the planning, development, or production stages. Examples of potential projects in tier three include medium to large-sized murals and interventions.

Tier Four: $60,000-$100,000

Budgets above $60,000 will fund artist fees and project costs of tier three as well as artworks that require larger scale and longer-term production, such as a large-scale sculpture installation, and/or a standing residency on site with events offered throughout the installation. This tier must also include regular maintenance plans and community engagement partnership during the planning, development, or production stages. This grant amount will be awarded to no more than two applicants total each year.

Requirements

Eligibility: The following criteria will be used to review all applications:

Project proposals must be artist-led and freely accessible to the public.

Projects must be sited in a City of Boston neighborhood.
This opportunity is open to all artists, including individuals, for-profit businesses, and nonprofits.

All applications must be submitted through Submittable by the deadline. No late submissions will be accepted.

Application Instructions

To apply for Opportunity 1: Temporary Monuments, please fill out this application. For full project background, please read more here.

For Opportunity 2: Projection Mapping Artist Workshop apply here.