ANNUAL PROGRAM
Public Art Accelerator
Ushering in a cohort of artists
shaping Boston’s public space
The Public Art Accelerator is a skill-building and grant-funding program designed to support early-to-mid-career Boston-based artists in creating temporary public art projects in Boston neighborhoods. Launched in 2018, the 30 graduates of the Accelerator are working in the community, creating dynamic and thoughtful projects, and helping change the narrative of our city and region. During Triennial years, Greater Boston artists are invited to participate in the Accelerator at Lot Lab.
Accelerator Cohort 6 artists are hard at work producing four bold public art experiences coming this summer — be sure to check back for more information on openings and programming.
ACCELERATOR ARTISTS
Meet Cohort 6
Michael Berthaud
Michael Berthaud (he/him) is a 23-year-old multimedia artist born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. His introduction to the arts came in the form of designing games alone in his bedroom. When he began working in the game industry as a designer and engineer, he discovered the power of designing rules and its implications on human behavior. From collaborating with brands such as Rovio, to working in small indie studios, Michael has seen how games of all sizes can not only be profitable, but also culturally impactful. As he continued to gain experience in the art of game design, he began to loathe how contemporary games are trapped inside the confines of a home computer, console, or mobile phone. This created a new found synergy where he began to take the principles of game design and carry them into the public art space.
Sarah Brophy
Sarah Brophy (she/her) is a new media artist exploring tensions in the built environment where Western science, the natural world, and technology collide. In her constructed animated worlds she pulls at the strings of her flawed relationship with the natural environment through the wider lens of human co-dependence with computers. Often searching for what gets lost or gained in the transfer from physical object to intangible pixel, Sarah’s work wrestles with the contradictory feelings of awe and disenchantment with contemporary technology and asks questions about power, agency, and futurity within interwoven organic and synthetic systems.
Sarah’s projects have been exhibited in public art venues including The Berlin Festival of Lights, 150 Media Stream, and ILLUMINUS. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BA in Studio Arts from Bard College. Sarah is also a designer for the architecture firm Perkins & Will.
Jeremy "Sobek" Harrison
Sobek (he/him) is Boston-born and raised. Mattapan, Dorchester has always been home and Sobek accredits Mattapan Square for teaching him everything Hip Hop, especially Graffiti. Already a young illustrator, Sobek started learning aerosol and his love for art enhanced his passion. His first Graffiti piece was painted in ‘98 although he has been tagging since ‘97, now merging his illustrations and Graffiti into large-scale murals of aerosol abstract realism.
Sobek’s passion for the arts, specifically Graffiti, and its positive representation has led him to start Back Against the Wall. The initiative helps the inner-city community make their words and self-portraits visible on a larger scale, encouraging the positive power of words and familiar faces. Graffiti is an important part of this mission because it was birthed through rebellious strength motivating a culture to recognize their power.
Nelly Kate
Nelly Kate (she/her) is a transdisciplinary artist creating space for public imagination through time-based media, print, and the lens of Queer and Deaf experience. Nelly grew up in the American South, where she established a career in music and sound design. Her early work led her to tour nationally and to share the stage with artists such as tUnE-yArDs, Mirah, Stephen Vitiello, and Angel Olsen. She gradually expanded her engagement with the public beyond performance into installations of oral history projects, interactive sculpture, and itinerant walks.
In 2015, Nelly turned her focus to inaudible sound—exploring captions, sonic visualizations, and haptics. During her MFA candidacy at Cranbrook Academy of Art (2021), she developed a technique for utilizing suminagashi marbling and fluid cymatics to make ‘sound prints’.
She’s currently a resident at the Boston Center for the Arts and contributing to a performance directed by Fayen d’Evie for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
ACCELERATOR ALUMNI
David Buckley Borden
Krystle Brown
Eli Brown
Katarina Burin
Shaka Dendy
Ryan Edwards
Pat Falco
Samantha Fields
Lina Maria Giraldo
Cynthia Gunadi and Joel Lamere
Dell Marie Hamilton
Stephen Hamilton
Eben Haines
Ekua Holmes
Ang Li
Karmimadeebora McMillan
Cat Mazza
Andrew Mowbray
Tanya Nixon-Silberg
Karthik Pandian
Ponnapa Prakkamukul
Danielle Rivera
Gabriel Sosa
Rhea Vedro
Yu-Wen Wu
ACCELERATOR SUPPORTERS
The Public Art Accelerator Program is possible thanks to the generosity and leadership of Joyce Linde, who supported the 3-year pilot program. She is joined by James and Audrey Foster and other donors who believe the work of local artists, especially artists of color and those underrepresented in traditional art systems, belongs in public space.
