There isn’t much that strengthens the bonds that cultivate community character like public art. When a community invests in an artist and an artist reciprocates that good faith with work that honors, challenges, and unites, as so much quality art does, the net is a meaningful representation of artistic administrative success—just the kind of success that students seek to cultivate through the BU MET’s MS in Arts Administration program.
As a student in Arts and the Community (MET AR 766), Arts Administration alum Anna Fubini (MET ’23) learned the complex mechanics of community-based arts programs, and set to work. As part of that class, she began developing a public art project of her own—one that has now been brought to life in Somerville, Massachusetts thanks to sponsorship from the city.
Photos Courtesy of Johnny Tang (johnnytangphoto.com).
Fubini’s work is called Letters Rewoven, an installation located in Somerville’s Lou Ann David Park that will be on display until spring of 2026. In it, Fubini takes writings produced by Somerville residents as part of collaborator Brenda M. Echeverry’s Art and Soul Clinic and interweaves them into the walls of a structure that, as a whole, subverts traditional notions of public art. The sculpture embraces impermanence through a design that gradually decomposes, nourishing the soil and giving rise to new growth.
The Somerville writers whose work Fubini transformed were encouraged to consider transformation, impermanence, renewal, and resilience, and the ways these forces have shaped their own lives. What they wrote was then worked into paper pulp which was then mixed with wildflower seeds and used to cover the sculpture’s panels.
Fubini was able to realize this project thanks to the successful pursuit of grant funding from the Temporary Public Art by Emerging Artists Program, which is itself funded by the New England Foundation for the Arts Making it Public Program through the Somerville Arts Council. Through the Somerville Arts Council, the City of Somerville commissioned the temporary public art project as part of an effort to support emerging artists and bring new creative voices to the city’s public spaces.
Via two-phase selection process, developing artists like Fubini were invited to propose temporary outdoor works reflecting Somerville’s cultural, social, or environmental landscape. By helping emerging artists gain valuable public art experience, the program aimed to enrich the city’s streets and parks with fresh perspectives.
Fubini, armed with the lessons learned during her BU MET studies, was able to secure the city’s nomination and execute her vision. An artist, community arts educator, and arts administrator who specializes in experimental fiber and mixed media, Fubini pursues work that juxtaposes opposing materials, found objects, and subverted surface design techniques to explore themes of duality, contradiction, and deconstruction, particularly in relation to societal norms and gender binaries.
Learn more about the project at Fubini’s website.
