Boston’s first Gallery for the Community unifies artists with nonprofit

While art and incarceration may not be obvious partners, community members have decided to speak out on behalf of local artists to spread the word about their work and young individuals stuck in a system of poverty and incarceration. This upcoming experience blends the two themes and welcomes the public to Boston’s first Gallery for the Community.

Gallery for the Community, a show that displays the work of 14 Boston artists, will open at Pavement Coffeehouse’s Commonwealth Avenue location on Saturday. Half of the proceeds will go to the artists, and the other half will go to Chelsea-based Roca, a nonprofit organization that works to “disrupt the cycle of incarceration and poverty by helping young people transform their lives,” according to the Roca website.

Adam Bieda, a sophomore in Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and Allison MacDonald, the art coordinator at Pavement Coffeehouse, spearheaded this project and worked with community partners to bring Gallery for the Community to BU’s campus.

“The event was originally going to be a fundraiser for the Boston Arts Academy, but when I went to Roca with my freshmen during [the First-Year Student Outreach Project], my entire perception changed about youth incarceration and youth poverty and how it can be so hard to overcome,” Bieda said.

Roca’s mission is to help individuals establish better lives for themselves in order to avoid incarceration or another sentence. They have locations in Chelsea, Boston, Lynn and Springfield. The organization focuses on “high-risk young men and women ages 17 to 24,” said April Spataro, program manager of Roca’s Chelsea location.

“We typically work with individuals who society has decided they don’t want to work with,” Spataro said. “Those are the guys we want. We want the guys who say, ‘Leave me alone, I don’t want to do anything, I’ll never change my life.’”

Roca has a lot of help from the community, including partners such as local schools and police stations. MacDonald said she feels strongly about getting the word out about Roca, because outreach and education can be tricky for the organization.

“I think it’s very important to get involved and give amazing organizations like Roca money, because I would rather have my money go to keeping young people off the streets and giving them new hope, as opposed to incarcerating another person and doing nothing to fix the problem,” MacDonald said.

Local artists also run into their own frequent complications. Although they are deeply dedicated to their work, they often face the ever-present problem of struggling to find outlets to showcase their work. In fact, Bieda’s original inspiration for the show came from witnessing this dilemma happen to his own friends.

“Two of my friends are artists and I love their work, but I found myself wishing that there was some way for more people to see what they create,” Bieda said.

To further spread the word, Bieda and MacDonald decided to create “Artist of the Day” posts in the Gallery for the Community Facebook event, which allow artists to show pictures of their work and auction pieces off. Khalil Kaba, a Gallery for the Community artist and one of the Artists of the Day this week, posted his work of abstract photography and sound production for auctioning.

Kaba said he was grateful for the Gallery for the Community’s effort to help local artists gain a community and aid Roca in funding their mission. The two efforts went hand in hand, he said.

“Showing different perspectives and inspiring people gives them a spark,” Kaba said. “Giving them inspiration so that they’re motivated and keep that spark can be a great change in someone’s life.”

Spataro agreed that art projects allow Roca’s young men and women to express themselves through a different outlet.

“There has been change in terms of guys understanding that it’s OK to do something different and use it as an outlet,” Spataro said. “Sometimes just allowing them to just sit down and do whatever they want with a canvas has allowed a person to calm down, rethink what’s going on.”

She said she has high hopes for the future, with a goal of continuing and strengthening the art programs with the individuals whom Roca works with. Not many people usually give them the opportunities to use art to grow, Spataro said.

“It gives them a chance to try something new and do something different,” Spataro said, “so that they can feel different.”