Many people aren’t aware that the section of the city close to the University of Massachusetts Boston called Columbia Point, a part of the South Boston also known as Harbor Point, was once a landfill. This may partly explain the feeling of detachment within and outside the Harbor Point community. But the UMass Boston Outreach Participation Center Project (COPC) is about to change all of that with the public arts project. The program strives to bring the Harbor Point community closer together through public art created by the residents of The Point. Among the many organizations and institutions involved in the project are the Commonwealth Museum, McCormack Middle School, St. Christopher’s Church, the Kennedy Library, The Boston Globe, and the University of Massachusetts Boston. The project is funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“It will be a visual way to say we are just people living, working, and learning together on The Point,” says Wendy Baring-Gould, Director of Education and Community Outreach for the Arts on the Point project. It is hoped that the art created on the point will impact the community in a positive way.

A steering committee of Harbor Point residents and representatives from the various institutions mentioned above will select 100 community members to partake in ten, daylong workshops in March and April. The set-up of the workshops will be as follows: 60 community members will partake in the visual arts workshops and forty members will be involved in the poetry workshops. Each workshop will have 20 participants and will meet over two days-Saturday and Sunday. The workshops will be led by visual artists and poets selected by the subgroup of the steering committee. There will be between 40-50 people creating text and poetry and between 60-70 people creating visual art.

The public opening of the finished artwork will take place in May at the campus center. The artwork, as well as the artists signatures’ and the role they play in the community, will be placed onto poster-sized plaques. There will be a celebration of the art as well as introductions to the all the artists. In July, the finished plaques will be reproduced in metal and installed throughout the community at intersections, streetscapes, and bus stops in ten clusters of posts or totems. This will enable individuals to become more familiar with each other on The Point.

To find out more about the Public Arts Project go to [email protected].