More than $800,000 in grants have been awarded to 10 public arts and culture projects across the city, including a memorial for the victims of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and art near Faneuil Hall to commemorate Africans and African Americans sold into slavery in the city.
The grants, announced in a press release Thursday by Mayor Martin Walsh and the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, are funded through the Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund, a public space improvement fund donated to the City by a wealthy merchant in 1892.
Walsh said in the release the Browne fund has in the past positively impacted Boston and that he looks forward to seeing the projects supplemented by this year’s grants.
“The grantees in this round of Browne funding represent a diverse array of projects from all across the City of Boston,” Walsh said. “We’ve seen the tremendous impact that public art and the beautification of neighborhoods can have on the City as a whole, and I am excited to see these projects enhance neighborhoods and uplift communities.”
Kristina Carroll, communications director for the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, said the recipients this year cover a wide range of neighborhoods and art mediums in the city.
“There’s a good variety of groups there, and they’re all kind of in different phases of the process of some of these projects have already been completed, some are still in the works,” Carroll said. “And they take place throughout the city, so they’re in different neighborhoods, and different types of art projects, too.”
Recipients’ funding is going toward projects including landscaping and lighting improvements, memorials, restoration, public artwork and ornamental fencing.
In addition to the Browne fund, Carroll said, the Office of Arts and Culture has a Percent for Art program, which allocates 1 percent of the City’s capital construction budget toward the creation of permanent public art throughout the city.
“We have a few different projects underway right now, and these projects typically take a couple years to complete, so there are all kinds of different stages,” Carroll said.
Alexandria Guy, 25, of Brighton, said she thinks art in cities is important because it is a way for the community to express itself.
“It definitely reflects the people who live there,” Guy said. “In New York, for example, as you go from different borough to borough, you see how that borough shaped their area just by the artwork that you see there.”
Oliver Ashman, 25, of Allston, said he thinks art is important for individuals as well as the community.
“Hopefully it can bring some revenue for the City at the end of the day,” Ashman said.
Nyah Jordan contributed to the reporting of this article.
