un-monument: call to artists—temporary monuments 2025

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

We’re collaborating with artists, local cultural organizations, and community members to imagine ways of commemorating the people, places, and events that are important to our 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, we present two distinct opportunities for artists. First, we 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.