'R-O-X-B-U-R-Y' Public Art Project
Artist Joe Wardwell collaborated with poet Nakia Hill and youth from 826 Boston’s Youth Literary Advisory Board on this project. It was installed in January 2022.
The project created a colorful, layered installation of poetry and Roxbury landscapes on three walls at the Roxbury Branch of the Boston Public Library. This is visible from Warren Street.
Project details
The total project budget was $250,000, including fabrication and installation. This project is the first of three site-specific projects by local artists that the City commissioned for the branch. It was funded through the Percent for Art program. In addition to new commissions, the City also restored and reinstalled "The Word" by Vusumuzi Maduna and Obie Simonis onto the facade of the library.
This project complements the $17.2 million renovation of the branch, which included:
- a new welcome area overlooking a redesigned plaza
- improved visibility and openness
- dedicated space for children, teens, and adults
- a prominently featured African-American collection
- a nutrition lab and learning lab, and
- refreshed collections.
The Roxbury Branch, formerly the Dudley Branch, hosts a wide range of programs and activities for patrons of all ages. All of this was previously hidden behind glass block and concrete walls. The new large windows of the branch will now make this activity visible from the street.
A relocated entry and plaza improvements along Dudley Street will also improve the civic presence of the library. This will help connect the library to the neighborhood and make it more welcoming.
The artwork is located in a prominent clerestory site inside the main library space. The artwork consists of three panels on large slanted concrete walls visible from many areas of the library, as well as from Warren Street at night.
The commissioning process began with public meetings on what the neighborhood would like to see in the branch. From those meetings it was clear that there was a strong desire for public art that speaks directly to what it means to live in Roxbury.
The City incorporated the community’s desires into a Call to Artists in May 2018. Through a competitive proposal process, local artist Joe Wardwell was selected to interview by an Artist Selection Committee made up of arts professionals, many from Roxbury. The Art Commission awarded him for the project.
In thinking about how to approach the Roxbury Branch project, Joe Wardwell set out with some key goals for the design:
- think about the neighborhood and surrounding community of the library
- collaborate and engage with other artists and members of the community, and
- respond to the architecture and feel of the redesigned library.
The redesigned space and a desire to include more work from local poets like Nakia Hill in the piece led Joe to propose an expansion of the project. His project now extends across the two side panels adjacent to the central clerestory wall.
The artwork is a combination of landscape, text, and abstraction combined through a layering process. The bottom layer will be a blend of colors with stenciled landscapes on top. Each image will be iconic viewpoints around the Roxbury neighborhood.
The second layer is an abstract layer. It responds to the architectural elements of both the original and redesigned branch. A color spectrum of gradient throughout the piece will mirror the gradient across the back of the library stacks. The wood diagonal baffles throughout the ceiling show up in the abstract design. The vertical columns of the space are also reflected in the vertical “bands” in the design.
The third layer is a layer of text. For this part of the project, Joe collaborated with poet, former City of Boston artist-in-residence (Boston AIR), and 826 Boston’s Writing Room Director Nakia Hill and the Youth Literary Advisory Board (YLAB). The collaboration will include:
- an excerpt of Nakia Hill’s poem "A Nubian Notion" in the large text of the artwork
- poems about Roxbury by Asiyah Herrera and other youth writers in the smaller text of the artwork
- a silkscreen portfolio for the Boston Public Library, 826 Boston, and the contributing writers, and
- the cover for a book published by the YLAB writers.
“Pride wrapped around us like an emerald necklace
High upon a Mission Hill projecting a bright beam of light
clinging to the essence of our communities”
-excerpt from A Nubian Notion by Nakia Hill
Artist and collaborators
Artist and collaborators
Joe Wardwell
Roxbury Library Branch artist
Joe Wardwell is currently an Associate Professor of Painting at Brandeis University. He founded the Brandeis-in-Siena program in 2015. Wardwell received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting in 1996 from the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1999, he received a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Boston University.
Currently on view through 2022, Wardwell has a large-scale wall drawing commissioned for the renovation of building 6 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, and Wardwell's work is in each collection.
In 2012, Wardwell was a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant for Painting. He was recently awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Creative Arts at Boston University. In addition to numerous group exhibitions throughout the region, he has held solo exhibitions in New York, New Haven, Boston, and Seattle.
In 2020, Wardwell will exhibit in New York with the Frosch and Portmann gallery in the Lower East Side. His work is represented in Boston by the LaMontagne Gallery. Wardwell lives with his family in Jamaica Plain and his studio is in Dorchester.
Asiyah Herrera
Roxbury Library Branch art collaborator
Asiyah Herrera is a poet, activist, and 826 Boston’s Youth Literary Advisory Board’s Teaching Artist. She was a finalist for the City of Boston’s Youth Poet Laureate residency.
Nakia Hill
Artist-in-Residence | Cohort 3, 2018-19
Nakia Hill is a writer and educator with a track record of effectively managing and scaling writing programs for urban youth. She specializes in managing creative writing spaces for underserved youth to fuel empowerment and to discover the writer within. With a background in journalism, her work has been published in The Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, The Bay State Banner, and Sister to Sister Magazine. Her latest work is created through a non-fiction lens in the form of poetry and reflective personal narratives. The theme of her work focuses on womanhood, self-care, and resiliency.
'I Still Did It'
During her residency, Nakia held writing workshops at the Grove Hall Senior Center in Dorchester and led a program called "Girls, Write!" at New Academy Estates in Roxbury. During these workshops, she helped young girls and women turn their experiences with resilience into narratives. She then compiled these stories into a published intergenerational anthology called "I Still Did It," which features resilience stories written by girls and women of color ages 10 - 88 in Boston.
Women in the Workplace Survey
This survey was created by writer and Boston resident Nakia Hill as part of the Boston AIR program’s effort to explore resilience and racial equity. The survey aimed to help the City better understand how women of color are treated in the workplace in Boston. Questions were designed to get a snapshot of the experience of women in the workplace in Boston. All women who live or work in Boston were welcome to take part in this study.
This survey was anonymous and respondents had the option to share as much, or as little, about their stories to help better inform our study. This data will be used to advocate for the creation of policies to protect women and improve their experience in the workplace.
Project partners
826 Boston
The nonprofit youth writing and publishing organization is dedicated to empowering traditionally underserved students ages 6-18.
Youth Literary Advisory Board
Youth Literary Advisory Board is a student-driven program. It is a collective providing students support to discover their artistic voice.
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