The Wrap

The Embrace Memorial Fence Wrap Art Commission

Embrace Boston’s The Embrace memorial will be anchored here on the Boston Common beginning in 2023, where, in 1965, Dr. King called on the City to live by its highest ideals. Embrace Boston is working closely with the artist Hank Willis Thomas, MASS Design Group, and the City of Boston to create a living memorial honoring the legacy of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and their time and work together in Boston. The Embrace will be positioned on the 1965 Freedom Rally Memorial Plaza that will give voice to 65 other Boston civil rights leaders.

The Common, America’s first public park, has a vibrant and complicated 400-year-old history, and a tradition of civic gatherings. The Embrace is intended to inspire visitors to reflect on the values of racial and economic justice that both Kings espoused.

Embrace Boston envisions an inclusive and equitable Boston. Activating arts and culture is essential to reimagining and recasting cultural representations and practices grounded in equity, joy, and wellbeing. As a part of an ecosystem committed to change, King Boston engages arts, culture, research, and policy to dramatically transform Boston into a city that centers racial equity and justice. The Embrace will spark a new public conversation in Boston today.

The Embrace Memorial Fence Wrap Art Commission was envisioned as an opportunity to endorse and uplift Boston-based BIPOC photographers and digital artists to share their voice – through their art – along the fence while The Embrace memorial is under construction.

artists

Harry Scales

Artist

Harry Scales

Artist

Website: www.harryscales.com

This essay is a collage of work made on the streets of Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan & the South End; neighborhoods home to a large number of Boston’s citizens of color; home of my mother, father, sisters & now my son. During my time making this work, I considered what it meant to live here & to be from this place. I thought about what it felt like wandering down Bowdoin Street in the morning after most had gone off on the bus or train to work. Or, in contrast, to find myself marching through the streets & protesting in the same parks I used to play in.

Half of the images chosen were made during Boston’s colder months when the streets grow quiet & the occurrence of people becomes less frequent. The other half are peripheral moments from a year of marches throughout Boston in response to the murder of George Floyd & countless others by law enforcement across the United States.

This essay is an endearing song written for the often-overlooked communities of a famed town. It is a song of questions found & shared, grappling with the challenge of how to celebrate the place you’re from & your own identity in the shadow of a city & country’s beloved heritage.

Malakhai Pearson

Artist

Malakhai Pearson

Artist

Website: www.malakhaipearson.com

Since 2018, I’ve been documenting nightlife here in Boston. Through this work, I’ve connected with some of the best DJs and event producers in this city.

In my eyes, the “DJ” is often overlooked, considered an afterthought when it comes to what a modern city needs to thrive. My first-hand experiences have firmly convinced me that the “DJ” should not be viewed simply as entertainers, but as champions for curating greatly needed environments for free self-expression and celebration.

The piece above (commissioned by the Boston Foundation) is my love letter to some of the Black DJs in Boston that I have got the pleasure of photographing throughout the years. I’d like these artists to be celebrated for creating safe and enjoyable spaces for people here in Boston and beyond. Without these folks, some of the most needed “spaces” wouldn’t exist. In some ways, this piece can serve as a time capsule for the creative and cultural growth of our city.

The talent featured:

DJ Slick Vick (Photographed East Boston and Cambridge)

DJ Real P (Photographed in Cambridge, Downtown Boston, & North Station)

Baby Indiglo (Photographed in Fenway, Cambridge, and North Station)

SuperSmashBros | Muyi & Noma (Photographed in Lovejoy Wharf)

DJ Brandichanel (Photographed in Back Bay)

Rixy Fernandez

Artist

Rixy Fernandez

Artist

Website: www.rixyfz.com

For this embrace, I chose to create an image that reflects the acceptance of unique beauty that surrounds ourselves. As a woman of color, I look to embrace all the diversities in my culture, and the ways it resembles so many others vibrant beings around the worlds … where we all feel like parts of Boston is a community that homes these differences. There is a serene energy that encapsulates us when we find the warmth in “embracing” who we are, while confidently trusting what blooms when we continue to walk with open arms.

Rixy (she/her) is an Interdisciplinary Visual Arts Explorer +Public Storyteller, imagining an island that homes the complex sensualities of feminine figures – similar to the experiences within her own jungles. By reinterpreting narratives of the womXnly forms of Beauty, Health, and a Power, in fluorescent layers, can We empower ourselves, + ultimately be deadly against the toxicity of Machismentos. This stems from processing the generational versions of self in a way that she could understand as an evolving young person, into a future of ancestral connection. Visions are created through Public Muralism and Studio-Mixed Assemblages, based in Painting, Illustration, and Sculpture. Typically, she’s using a mix of mediums from traditional Acrylic + Aerosol paint, + various embellishments, for outdoor application, to reusing Inks, Food Dyes,
and Sustainable Materials + Fabrics within the intimate conversations and works. To tap into the body of her own, to connect with others’, and create work that can speak cross culturally, involves research further into communities we come across – influencing practices in Teaching, Programming, and traveling Residences for deeper learning into communal practice and storysharing.

Rixy is from Roxbury, Massachusetts, a first generation latinX womXn with blood roots in Honduran Garifuna + Dominican Caribeñe lands. Primarily community + self-taught, she has received her BA at UMass Boston ‘19, with a Sculpture concentration for a focus in material, sensual + spatial awareness.

Her work is most translated through her Public Muralism, Studio-Mixed Assemblages, and Communal Activations. They’ve been exhibited on street-wide and institutional spaces from her base in New England to Latin America, with continuous outreach beyond her homes. Recently, she attended TheCreateWell’s Converging Liberations Residency at Mass MoCA, a WorldwideWalls: Worcester Golden Year Muralist, was a Ruth Butler Travel Fellow ‘19, and is currently a Public Art Accelerator with Now+There’s Cohort 4, and an A.I.R with Elevated Thought.

Tran Vu

Artist

Tran Vu

Artist

Website: www.tranvuarts.com

To visualize a beloved community within Boston, we must look toward histories of local people power fighting for social change and justice. As a Vietnamese American socially engaged artist and organizer, my aim in this work is to document and amplify narratives of movements that thread Boston’s neighborhoods through change, struggle, and uncertainty yet also offering hope and transformation. Hence, I am highlighting three powerful and inspiring on-going actions that directly connect to Dr. King’s timeless message and values of love, nonviolence, and equity.

To showcase change and reveal the passage of time, I embedded more recent protests’ images against a backdrop of historical photographs depicting the local neighborhoods of Dorchester and Roxbury (where Dr. King lived and met his wife Coretta). From anti-displacement to Stop Asian Hate and marching for Black Lives, these social struggles and movements are vital to cultivating, understanding, and protecting our beloved community collectively.

Ngoc-Tran Vu (she/her) is a 1.5-generation Vietnamese-American multimedia artist and organizer whose socially engaged practice draws from her experience as a connector, educator, and lightworker. Tran threads her social practice through photography, painting, sculpture, and audio so that her art can resonate and engage audience with intentionality. Her work evokes discourse of familial ties, memories, and rituals amongst themes of social justice and intersectionality. Tran works across borders and is based in Boston’s Dorchester community.

Yotron The Don

Artist

Yotron The Don

Artist

Website: https://www.luvytd.com/

Self taught Cuban artist, Born and raised in South Florida. At the age of 14 he moved to Boston. Influenced by the graffiti filled city he began to pursue art as a hobby, by the age of 22 he decided to take art seriously and fully developed his “Conceptually Abstract” style utilizing hard lines, patterns, unorthodox color combinations and his signature characters.

“DAILY LIFE”

This little flower species is called Lilly. They live on a planet called bouquet, it’s filled with lots of interesting creatures. A beloved community is one that is vibrant, equitable, and willing to imagine new pathways to freedom. It’s one that not only represents people and cultures from all around the world but also welcomes their unique perspectives and ideas. Creative expression is so important, because it allows us to give the world a glimpse of the future we see, but a truly beloved community can only be realized through the way we work, live, and grow with each other. The King legacy reminds us that, an idea built on love, justice, and an unwavering commitment to uplift people can never be wrong.

As the landscapes of Boston change and take a new form, we have the opportunity to reimagine what a sustainable and equitable community can look like. Digital art and technology give us the creative tools needed to design a world free from limitations, and that’s exactly what we want to portray with this piece.

Zahirah Nur Truth

Artist

Zahirah Nur Truth

Artist

Website: www.zntarts.com

As an artist I draw inspiration from many sources that I see around me related to being a black woman, motherhood and simply my experiences in life. I am also impacted by everyday happenings, music, cartoons/anime and pop culture.

I don’t limit myself to one artform, but my first true love is illustration and painting. And from there, I find myself mixing and exploring all the line making mediums possible to create art portraits, the divine feminine along with representations of images I don’t always get to see. I often look to mix the old with the new, experimenting with my current style and turning it into something inspiring.

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The Embrace Memorial Fence Wrap Art Commission

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