Gabriel Sosa
August 6, 2025
Your first engagement with the Triennial occurred in 2020 when you participated in our Public Art Accelerator. How did that experience shape your approach to public art production? How did it shape your thinking as you prepared your Triennial 2025 project?
The Public Art Accelerator was a phenomenal program to participate in. It was also a really unique time to do it, since it was spring 2020. We had been meeting in person, and all of a sudden, the world changed. It was an especially challenging time to think about public art, and that program came at a pivotal time in my art practice.
For my Accelerator project, No es fácil/It ain’t easy, I created a series of nine billboards in Boston that went up in neighborhoods that had the highest COVID rates, which meant that they were also neighborhoods with high concentrations of essential workers, and high concentrations of Spanish speakers. At the start of the Accelerator, I had considered billboards as an option, but once the pandemic hit, I realized that might be the perfect choice. They offered an opportunity for something to exist in public space that didn't require gatherings of people coming together in order to be activated. I was also really enamored of the rich history of artists using billboards, like Félix González-Torres, Antonio Caro, and Barbara Kruger. My project really influenced my thinking about this idea of decentralized public art in regard to my work for the Triennial. I said, okay, I'm going to take this idea, and do it in nine different spaces throughout the city. It created this kind of rhythm where somebody you know could be driving down the street in Roslindale and see something, and then maybe a couple weeks later be walking around East Boston and see something else and start to make these connections and find pathways, which I found really exciting—this gesture of decentralizing and scattering something really stuck with me. Towards the end of the project, I created these T-shirts and sweatshirts with some of the phrases on them. I sold them and donated 100% of the proceeds to a few different nonprofits to address various social concerns, especially in the community and our region. And that was a cool element of the project; if I'm wearing something that is part of an artwork and I'm out in the community, I’m like this mobile human public art piece, right? All of that had an impact on me and has influenced my Triennial project.
Language and translation are recurring themes within your work. Can you share a little about where those interests come from?
I became interested in language as a concept long before I became interested in it as a medium. I grew up in a Cuban household in Miami. My entire family is Cuban, and I grew up in a very Cuban community. The Cuban population in Miami is enormous and definitive of many aspects of the city. Growing up in a bilingual home in a bilingual city, surrounded by people like me in that sense, I was always interested in the idea of translation and the varied interpretability that different words or expressions or sayings can have. In 2009, I became a certified interpreter for the Massachusetts Trial Court. When you're a certified interpreter, you are working in courtrooms. I orally translated criminal and civil proceedings from English into Spanish, and I did that work for 11 years.It left an indelible impact on me as an artist and as a person. I see language as a tool for both unity and separation. It can be really precise, but also really muddy. How can I not be making work about that?
Your Triennial project posits the possibility of engendering community through community printmaking. How do you think that access to arts and culture opportunities positively impacts communities? What do you hope visitors can take away from their experience of your project?
As an educator, I frequently talk to my students about how art can serve as a way to bring people together. A lot of the time, that happens through participatory work. I was teaching an exhibition-making class, and we were talking about the importance of programming and creating new access points for work that goes beyond the visual absorption of work on display. How can we create a situation where people are being placed in dialogue with one another? It could be a walk-through, talk, or participatory activity inspired by the exhibition.
I'm a firm believer in art as a uniter and as a glue in the community. Maverick Landing Community Services, the nonprofit organization that houses ñ press, is a warm space that has such an impact in East Boston ranging from youth leadership programs to food distribution, and serves as a point of connection for so many people in the area. I feel that the work that ñ press does builds upon that dynamic. The tagline for open hours at ñ press has become “design a poster, print a shirt, make a friend,” and I’ve found that to be true! I am thrilled with the possibility of bringing people together.
What can people experience when visiting your Triennial 2025 project, Ñ Press?
We print up a storm every Saturday and the public can join us in that. I love how print could be considered the OG of public art in some ways. I like this idea of creating situations where an individual can be the destination, instead of the work being the destination. I want people to be able to say, “Hey, look, I created this, and it’s for you,” and to give that experience of art to somebody and invite them into that process of circulation. I also think that in an era of screens and AI, there's something refreshing about being able to hold something. Print also has this beautiful history of activism, especially in East Boston.
When people come to ñ press, they can expect to respond to some kind of prompt related to care, activism, or solidarity that will then be transformed into print and disseminated throughout East Boston and beyond. There are opportunities to collage words and images together, and print a poster of that design on our Risograph, which is a high-capacity printer with very bright inks. The public can take some home and we will keep some as well to circulate throughout the neighborhood. There is also an opportunity to learn how to screenprint, and take home prints or t-shirts with community-created designs on them. We hold open hours on Saturday, noon - 6:00pm at Maverick Landing Community Services, and you can check the Triennial calendar for other events, such as “zine nite” or “silkscreen nite,” or walks through the neighborhood when we scatter publications. On other occasions, there are guided workshops offered to different groups or organizations to shape together public messaging in the community. If you’re interested in one please reach out!
As a local artist, what do you hope is the Triennial’s impact on the arts ecosystem in Boston?
I hope that the Triennial will provide us with lasting connections between people, organizations, and institutions that will endure into the next Triennial and beyond. It’s an opportunity for all of us to consider who and what typically partake in artmaking processes, break some boundaries down, and bring some new participants into the fold. It also can provide a chance to emphasize to the public the rich array of powerful work that’s made and displayed in this city and inspire us to celebrate it together.