Here at N+T, we're always on the lookout for inspiration, exploring podcasts, movies, music, and everything in between. This November, we've turned to our team for recommendations to fuel your creative fire. Get ready to revive your 'To Be Read' list, pump up your Spotify queue, and add some excitement to your daily commute with these bold, open, and sharp recommendations.
JACKIE: While perusing video essays a few weeks ago on Youtube, I found a brilliant podcast by GBH News called “The Big Dig.” In each episode, host Ian Coss brings listeners through decades of Boston infrastructure history, starting with the highway boom of the 1950’s to the lasting impacts of the Big Dig today. As someone who has worked in municipal government, I found myself transfixed by the stories of neighborhoods fighting against highway infrastructure plans and the complexities of building intricate transit systems that work for all commuters. It really made me think about how infrastructure, although sometimes labeled a bipartisan issue, can have lasting ramifications on neighborhoods and generations of city-dwellers. Translating the podcast to the world of public art, I ask myself what lessons could we learn from the engineers of the Big Dig, and how can our work impact communities? It begs the question, “what went wrong,” and how can move forward in the City of Boston together?
KATE G: You’ve seen Girl Math. Now check out Nonprofit Math and other reels from Vu Le, the “dude behind NonprofitAF” and why IJBOL. A sense of humor keeps me rolling. And all jokes aside, NonprofitAF is a great resource for any cultural worker or service provider navigating non-profit life.
JAMISON: flyingfish, my new music obsession, was a part of Spotify’s “New Music Friday’s” playlist a few weeks ago, and I have been hooked since. A far departure from my usual music picks, flyingfish’s instrumental ensemble has proven to be a staple in my music lineup and a great background for deep focus time. My current fave is “blurry”.
MARGUERITE: When I’m working I need soft, airy ambient sounds to power through; anything with words is too distracting. Lately I’ve been gravitating towards KMRU, a Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist. He recently released Dissolution Grip but my continued favorite is Logue. I always find myself centered among his expansive tones mixed with field recordings. I’ve been wanting to see KMRU live for a while and perhaps might get the chance as he is performing as part of Performa Biennial 2023 in New York City this November.
JASPER: My main inspiration recently has been this podcast I just finished that Monument Lab produced called Plot of Land. You can learn all about it at this link.
It has been eye-opening to learn about the history of land ownership, privatization, and the dispossession of Black and Indigenous-owned land in the United States. Working as a public art curator, we often face questions of a site’s history, ownership, and the communities that steward those sites. While the current discourse and demand for decolonization and reparations sometimes feels beyond the scope of my reach at an arts nonprofit, it has been inspiring to hear personal stories of resilience and creativity from communities across the American landscape. It has also made me think more intentionally about how the movement for tenants' rights, affordable housing, and affordable artist spaces in Boston is directly linked to the history of public space and privatization at a national scale. I’ve been reminded that imagining a world that is open, free, and nourishing to all with public art isn’t just for art's sake in times like these– it’s necessary.
GISELA: I recently finished “Architects of an American Landscape: Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Reimagining of America's Public and Private Spaces” by Hugh Howard. It is a straightforward history of the architect and the landscape designer, but I was happily surprised that it functions doubly as a history of Greater Boston’s urban development at the end of the 19th century. The book could do a lot more to bring in diverse perspectives or reckon with the legacies of American urban development, which is disappointing. However, it is a quick read that helped me get to know my new city and some special parks, landmarks, and residences in the area.
These Boston-based designers were crafting, as Howard calls it, a “uniquely American” approach to architecture and landscape. In my reading, their ideas were largely dependent on European standards and contemporary morals of architecture and parks as “civilizing” tools for the public. Even so, there is plenty to take away as inspiration for a “uniquely American” public art practice that meets our current moment, including the relationship between public space design and public health, the value of international inspirations, and the joy of cross-disciplinary partnerships.
Header photo (c) Annielly Camargo