2021 — Present
See You In The Future
See You In The Future
Social practice, with various communities and organizations connected with the Mass. and Cass area of Boston, MA, USA.
Our project is a long-term spatial justice effort to support the unhoused, drug-using, and care-giving communities living or working in the industrial area known as “Mass. and Cass,” bordered by the Newmarket Business Improvement District, Roxbury, and South End neighborhoods.
We are exploring spatial justice by creating various holding spaces for community stories: one-on-one conversations, weekly workshops, a neighborhood mural and events, anonymous phone line, etc. Recognizing that space is constructed by an ecosystem of on-the-ground, institutional, and structural forces, we work with a variety of different groups and individuals who share our vision of spatial justice across scales.
We ground our community work with systems analyses (historical + archival research about the area) and direct action (advocacy and service work).
A flower made of felt, with a handwritten note reading, “When I started to take my pain seriously, I couldn’t go back. I grew.” Created in a workshop for See You In The Future.
Postcard with illustrations. Image by Melissa Teng.
Google Street View archives to view public realm changes. Image by Melissa Teng.
Timeline with media headlines covering Mass. and Cass, dating back to the closure of Long Island in 2014. However our research shows that Mass. and Cass was created by over 300 years of displacement, dispossession, and containment of poor, sick, and colonized communities. Image by Melissa Teng, in collaboration with Ben Zunkeler, Yirong Yao, Rinika Prince, Kongyun He, and Christopher Latouche from Sasaki.
Collaborators
Team
George Halfkenny
Sabrina Dorsainvil
Stephen Walter
Evvy Diego
Funders
Collective Futures Fund, Tufts Art Gallery + Andy Warhol Foundation
Sasaki Foundation
MIT Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center
New England Foundation for the Arts
Kresge Foundation
Boston Society for Architecture
Resources
↗ Press release from Dept. of Urban Studies + Planning
↗ Interview by Matthew Okazaki in Boston Art Review