Boston Public Art Triennial Presents Better Angels by Heather Kapplow
Newly commissioned public art pop-up in Boston invites audiences to come as they are across multiple locations, June - October 2026
Boston Public Art Triennial (The Triennial) is pleased to announce Better Angels, a traveling large-scale public art work by Boston-based conceptual artist Heather Kapplow, that will pop up across Boston’s iconic parks, plazas, and public spaces from June 2026 through October 2026. Better Angels is a playful invitation for viewers to envision their best selves with a fellow participant as witness, offering moments of grace when we fall short.
With large, campy inflatable clouds, golden gates to heaven, and a cast of “angels” performed by local artists, Better Angels humorously yet earnestly reminds visitors that democracy has always required us to navigate personal and collective aspirations, the challenges that keep us from them, and work together toward ideals beyond our lifetimes. The first confirmed temporary location will be at Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress Street, June 26th through 28th. Additional locations to be announced.
“It’s heartwarming to see this project take shape on the 10-year anniversary of Paul Ramirez’s Public Trust, an award-winning project that Heather and other local artists helped facilitate,” says The Triennial Executive Director Kate Gilbert. “Better Angels builds on The Triennial’s history of
commissioning participatory public art that invites personal and collective reflection and carries these values forward into the present moment with wry humor and grace.”
Rooted in socially engaged art practices while anchored in sculptural form, Better Angels demonstrates the expansive nature of public art to bring people together with openness, empathy, and understanding. Through a facilitated engagement at the gates of heaven, visitors reflect on an ideal they strive toward and what holds them back from achieving it. After sharing their ideal and their limitations with a partner-visitor as witness, Pete, Head of Security, accepts them into heaven via a decree and official paperwork before they walk through the installation, emerging with a new perspective. The project will offer visitors a moment of grace and a sanctuary for the problems we are facing, both individually and collectively. It invites us to envision our best selves for one another, the city, and the nation during the United States’ Semiquincentennial.
“Though this history won't be explicit when people are engaging with the piece, the title of the project conjures up Abraham Lincoln’s failed appeal for unity on the eve of the Civil War. It's there in the background of the experience to remind us that the promises of 1776 couldn't even carry the nation to its first centennial without rupture. And suggesting that it takes all of us acknowledging our weaknesses, and seeking out the best in ourselves and in one another for the nation to find a healthy future shape,” says artist Heather Kapplow.
“Amid renewed political polarization and racialized conflict, Better Angels draws on Boston’s revolutionary ground to trace a throughline from 1776 to 1861 to today,” says The Triennial, Assistant Curator, Jasper Sanchez. “It reminds us that democracy has always required navigating profound disagreement, and that progress depends on a collective striving toward our best selves.”
Public programming for Better Angels includes “Let’s Talk: Building A Heaven For Everyone”, a conversation moderated by Heather Kapplow, exploring the language we use in constructing our ideas of “heaven,” against the backdrop of the 250th anniversary of this country’s founding. Speakers include: Jha D. Amazi, Director of the Public Memory & Memorials Lab at MASS Design Group; Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity at Harvard Divinity School; and Neda Moridpour, Assistant Professor of the Practice, SMFA at Tufts University.
Better Angels, Atlantic Wharf, Hours:
Friday, June 26: 12—7 PM
Saturday, June 27: 12—7 PM
Sunday, June 28: 10 AM—4 PM
A full calendar of Better Angels sites, dates, and times is available at thetriennial.org/events.
About Heather Kapplow:
Heather/Hey There Kapplow is a self-trained conceptual artist based in the USA. Kapplow creates participatory experiences using installation, sound, objects, text, engagement and other strategies to convert audiences into collaborators and complex, hard-to-answer questions into tenderly co-held things, invested with transformative collective care. Kapplow has been awarded numerous grants, residencies and fellowships, and has had work commissioned for galleries and festivals within the USA and internationally. Most notably, performing at Venice Biennale, Supermarket Art Fair, ARoS Kunstmuseum, ANTI-Festival, Guggenheim Museum, Museo Arte Moderno and the Queens Museum; within works by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and On Kawara, among others.
About Boston Public Art Triennial: Boston Public Art Triennial is the city’s first and only public art organization dedicated to supporting artists and communities in bold, contemporary, public art with annual artwork commissions and an every-three-year citywide exhibition. The Triennial’s mission is to foster relationships between artists and the public to create bold public art experiences that open minds, conversations, and spaces across Boston, resulting in a more open, equitable, and vibrant city.
