Illuminating what we share

Public art trailblazer Janet Zweig invited all to converse about commonalities and public ownership with “What Do We Have in Common?,” which was on view in historic Boston Common from Sept 22 - Oct 24, 2021.

The installation began with a wooden cabinet near the Parkman Bandstand. 200 blue, illuminated markers waited within it, each carved with poignant questions such as “Who owns this park?” Over 30 days, Guides (some of who were bilingual) took these illuminated markers from the cabinet and placed them around the cabinet in order to spark thought-provoking conversations and reflections with the public on our shared responsibilities to each other and the public spaces we visit.

The artwork asked us to reflect on what we have in common with each other and the resources we share, like public parks. The title, a pun on the word “commons,” refers to things we own together or that no one owns: air, history, culture, the Internet, and the Boston Common itself.

Commissioned by the Friends of the Public Garden to honor their 50th Anniversary, and curated by Now + There. Share your thoughts and reactions at #InCommonBOS.

News from the park

Experiencing the project

Who owns…

The Boston Common is a powerful platform for conversation about our shared resources and experiences. As America’s first public park, it has witnessed nearly 400 years of history and continues to be one of Boston’s most important public gathering spaces, hosting art and music festivals, memorials, marches and even running races. Coming off a prolonged period of disconnection, Zweig’s installation invited us to re-engage, reflect, and find new connections with each other and the long-historied Boston Common.

Each day, a group of Guides removed a series of blue markers from the cabinet and installed them throughout the Common. These markers asked such questions as “Who owns the grass?,” “Who owns the future?” or “Who owns the Boston Harbor?” As markers are installed around the park, a poem emerged creating a constantly-changing daily commentary. The cabinet also contained a free Giving Library for visitors to further explore the theme of shared resources and commonalities. “What Do We Have in Common?” offers countless layers of meaning and ways for people to engage. 

Reflective of Boston’s rich cultural diversity, 32 of the 200 boxes in the cabinet were available in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Cape Verdean Creole.

Banner image: (c) Saad Ullah

Creating in Boston for the first time

Janet Zweig is a leader of the public art form, having worked in the public realm since the 1990s. Her major projects include a kinetic installation on a pier along Sacramento River, a performance space in a prairie on a Kansas City downtown green roof, a generative sentence wall in downtown Columbus, a light installation and memorial in Pittsburgh, a 1200' frieze at the Prince Street subway in New York and a system-wide interactive project for 11 Light Rail train stations in Minneapolis, incorporating the work of over a hundred Minnesotans. While she has created public sculpture, interactive works, and performance, “What Do We Have in Common?” seamlessly brings all three elements together for the first time. The project highlights the tremendous ecological treasure at Boston’s center through its amplification of the care that must go into it.

Janet is based in Brooklyn, NY and her sculpture and books have been exhibited widely in such places as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Exit Art, PS1 Museum, the Walker Art Center, and Cooper Union. Awards include the Rome Prize Fellowship, NEA fellowships, and residencies at PS1 Museum and the MacDowell Colony. She currently has a year-long residency with the New York City Mayor's Office of Sustainability and teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University.

Janet lived in Boston and Cambridge in the 1980s. This project was her first Boston-based public commission.

Photo provided by artist Janet Zweig, taken at Prince Street Station.

• Boston Globe "The possibility of the Commons” Oct 22, 2021.

• Wonderland “Janet Zweig’s ‘What Do We Have in Common?’ on Boston Common” Oct 17, 2021.

• Art Outdoors. “Art Raises Many Related Questions in Amazing Ways on the Boston Common: ‘What Do We Have in Common?’ by Janet Zweig” Oct 14, 2021.

• Boston Globe "Questions of shared ownership are on full display at Boston Common” Oct 12, 2021.

• GBH News: Arts This Week "A Public Art Exhibit On The Common Asks — What Do We Have In Common?” Sept 30, 2021.

• Beacon Hill Times "Friends of the Public Garden’s 50th Anniversary Art Installation,” Sept 30, 2021.

• Berkeley Beacon "‘What Do We Have in Common?’ Art Installation seeks to provoke thought” Sept 30, 2021.

Banner image: (c) Faith Ninivaggi.

“What Do We Have in Common?” sought to bring attention to how we care for, use, and own resources like the Boston Common, the Public Garden, and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. For more than 50 years, Friends of the Public Garden has partnered with the City of Boston Parks and Recreation department to care for these iconic public greenspaces. Now + There is thrilled to partner with the Friends to bring this very special experience to the Boston Common.

land acknowledgement

We acknowledge the deliberate and systemic oppression that has created the built environment where this project is installed. We are fostering public conversation exploring the centuries-long history of the site and the events, policies, and attitudes that have created the Boston we see today.

ABOUT friends of the public garden

For 50 years, Friends of the Public Garden has been caring and advocating for these precious resources. One of our nation’s first parks advocacy groups, FOPG was formed in 1970 by a group of neighbors, to begin the work of saving the Common, Garden, and Mall, after decades of neglect. Through the decades FOPG has brought people and partners together with the city to improve the three historic greenspaces and the collection of public art within them.