Diverse artistic expression and creative activations in our public spaces offer vital opportunities for communities to develop a vision for their shared present and future. With EPIX (Engage Public Imagination eXchange), we invest in organizations that support creation, curation, and production of public work that challenges what we think we know, makes space for joy and humanity, and invites us to reimagine the world we want to live in. We envision public spaces where everyone feels safe, powerful, and empowered to share their own stories — including those who have felt marginalized.
At Barr we believe that to unlock the power of arts and creativity in our public life, we need stronger connective tissue — increased capacity to produce, more exchange of ideas among communities and producers, and a shared infrastructure that will help all our communities imagine and make strides toward a future in which we are all free to show up as our whole selves unique in our cultures, experiences, and perspectives.
Working Together
The goal for this initiative is to foster a more developed and resourced public art field that is rooted in justice and belonging. To work toward this goal, this initiative aims to increase the ways arts, artists, and creative activations challenge the status quo and are leveraged to increase a sense of safety, agency and inclusion for the diverse people and communities across Massachusetts.
By strengthening infrastructure, fostering collaboration, and changing beliefs about public art, the EPIX grantees seek to change the field of public art and cultural practices. They envision a field that will:
- Cultivate agency and power. We are investing in field leadership to cultivate a sector that creates public and community-based arts and cultural experiences that challenge dominant beliefs and inspire us to think beyond what used to be. Through a process of purposeful creation, communities that have traditionally been marginalized can build connections, joy, and collective voice. We believe this is the necessary groundwork for movements that achieve equity in civil rights, housing, economic development, and more.
- Build public spaces of belonging. By putting art at the center to challenge oppressive norms and encouraging the expression of more diverse art, culture, and celebration in public and civic spaces, we seek to cultivate spaces in which any who have been made to feel unwelcome in the past can actually feel safe, seen, and powerful.
- Facilitate collective imagination. We envision art and creative activations in public that brings communities together in new and unexpected ways, supporting stronger connections, alignment, and collective action. We believe in more public art that helps people lean into their inherent creativity to imagine the future they want to see and inspire ideas on how to work together to build it.
The EPIX Portfolio
We are pleased to announce the following grantees are participants in EPIX:
The Boston Public Art Triennial
Collectively, the grantees in this portfolio represent a wide range of missions, budget sizes, and roles in the local and statewide sector. Moreover, each is an essential part of a robust and still evolving infrastructure: cultivating artists, nurturing professional and artistic growth, producing powerful new work, and shifting how public art is understood and valued across the state.
EPIX builds on Barr’s long-time commitment to public art to help grow a more inclusive and vibrant ecosystem. For over a decade, Barr in partnership with other funders and communities, has helped build a field that supports artists, intermediaries, and local partners to lead with creativity and courage. Today, Massachusetts has become a thriving home for public art: more cities and towns are commissioning projects, our state is home to a network of bold and visionary artists, curators, and producers who are reshaping the field, and national leaders are looking to our models for expanding arts as blueprints.
The remarkable progress we have seen in the public art field of Massachusetts has been rooted in the imagination, urgency, and leadership of the people and their communities. With EPIX, we aim to create opportunities for leaders in the field to collaborate, take risks, and shape what comes next on their own terms.
