By Nicole Eigbrett

BOSTON, MA – Demonstrators gathered at the Boston Police Headquarters in Roxbury on April 4, demanding for justice for Stephon Clark, Usaamah Rahim, Terrance Coleman, and several other victims who were killed by police officers.

By Sheila Murray

In her latest report for our Weaving the Streets project, Sheila Murray takes us to Practice Space, an innovative Boston space that focuses on "rigorous self-care" in order to "weave through its locality to strengthen a community."

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

As part of our ongoing Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo reveals his final act of artistic resistance. As the conclusion for this "Dissecting Boston" series, Tzintzun created a public installation on the beach of Plum Island, Massachusetts. This installation, "Forest of Watchers," embodies the subaltern gaze. It destabilizes the colonial borderlines of history; borderlines we are all complicit in constructing.

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

As part of our ongoing Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo contextualizes his acts of artistic resistance/vandalism. To accomplish this task, Tzintzun revels his previous intrusions within the border walls of the museum. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Tzintzun employed art/activism to re-politicize the white walls of censured history.

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

As part of our ongoing Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo explores his Mexican American mask and the layers of racism that lie underneath the surface of Plum Island, Massachusetts. To illustrate his argument, Tzintzun narrates the act of artistic rebellion he underwent to prevent the flattening of his Mexican American heritage into a "taco." Hard shell or soft shell, anyone?

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

As part of our ongoing Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo delves deeper into the development/conquest of Plum Island, Massachusetts. In doing so, Tzintzun grapples with the correlations between real estate and border construction. All bordered communities exclude portions of the population. The question remains: Who are these "undesirables"?

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

As part of our ongoing Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo explores the correlation between private ownership and climate change. By analyzing the 1920s partitioning of Plum Island, Massachusetts, Tzintzun dissects humanity's ownership addiction.

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

As part of our ongoing Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo describes his own act of figmantary division on the beaches of Plum Island, Massachusetts. In a public installation piece (beach art) entitled the "Outer Limit," Tzintzun brings to light the correlations between borders, private property and human induced global warming.

By Sheila Murray

As a transplant to the Boston area, it’s been interesting to familiarize myself with the city through the lens of current politics and social movements.  Unlike my years growing up in a small New Hampshire town and my time at university in upstate New York, Boston is positively bursting with events. That said, event spaces are not always conventional.  Here, a friend’s apartment is the scene for a “Women’s Brunch;” there, breweries become writing labs, bouldering gyms host “postcard parties,” and a tattoo parlor converts into a local artist marketplace.  In the past few months, my eyes have been on community engagement and the spaces that crop up as hosts.

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

As part of our ongoing Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo explores the historical roots of New England's gentrified divisions, unraveling the complex history of colonial boundaries. 

By Nicole Eigbrett

More than sixty musicians, activists, and supporters convened today at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Suffolk County Immigration Detention Justice Center in a display of solidarity with immigrants detained at the County Jail. Weave News reporter Nicole Eigbrett was there.

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

As part of our ongoing Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo describes his personal recipe for dissecting the borders of "American Identity" and the tools others need to join this artistic/activist process.

By Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo

In his latest post for our Weaving the Streets project, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo introduces his new blog “Dissecting Boston: Weaving Together the Borderlines of American Identity” and the artistic activism soon to come. 

By Raina K. Puels

Since moving to Allston, Massachusetts, in September, I’ve been delighted by the use of public space for displays of humor.  When I walk to the bank or the grocery store, I almost always see art or text on the street that makes me laugh.  My amusement causes other passersby to look at what I’ve discovered, and then they start laughing, too.  And that attracts even more people and more giggles and more chuckles.  Community is built through the shared experience of this humor.  Allston is notorious for being an area populated by college students, grad students, and young post-grads, so it’s natural that many people in my neighborhood have a similar cultural framework that begets a communal sense of humor.

By Raina K. Puels

Many days I’ve walked through Boston in a huff of negative emotion; fuming about the man who kindly complimented my leggings, then yelled “Nice ass!” when I walked away; beating myself up about not doing enough to advocate for the safety of my friends of color, my queer friends, my trans friends; frustrated and scared about the interest growing on both my undergrad and grad school loans.  But then I see text out of the corner of my eye and I’m taken out of my own thought-spirals back to the present, back to the street.

By Raina K. Puels

In her latest post for our Weaving the Streets project, Raina Puels explores how some religious congregations in Boston are using public space to express support for Black Lives Matter.

My first week in Boston, I went to Newbury Street in Back Bay.  I’d heard from friends it was a destination for those seeking high-end eateries and shopping, or those (like me) who wanted to people watch and laugh at dogs in strollers.  It looked the part of a bougie, trendy place to shop: streets lined with big trees, brownstones, and men in suits opening and closing the doors for retail establishments with huge windows displaying slender mannequins clad in the latest fashions.  In this commercial center, I didn’t expect to find support for Black Lives Matter.  After all, when most people go shopping they’re concerned with finding a new pair of shoes or a suit that fits, not working to end violence against Black people.