Boston’s newest art gallery, located in its Seaport neighborhood is also the city’s first Black-owned art gallery. The gallery, Blkchip Gallery, opened on June 27 and according to its proprietors it is intended to attract Bostonians of color to the neighborhood within which it resides.
According to CBS News, the artists and founders of the gallery want Blkchip Gallery to become a place where the community is welcome to come and learn about art. An artist, Melina Gomes, told WBZ News the importance of celebrating the art of artists of color. “What’s most important is that we’re celebrating fine artists that are people of color,” Gomes said. “Their value, who they are in this community, the legacy that we’re all building together is vital.”
Tavares Brewington, the founder of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab Street2Ivy, opened the gallery along with Street Theory Collective. Brewington explained his vision to WBZ News. “It really is an effort to have the Seaport reflect the rich cultural background of the city. It’ll be a place where we display artists, focused on lesser known Black and Brown artists. It’ll be a place where people can come from diverse backgrounds and enjoy all of the great things here in the Seaport. And make Boston that shining city on the hill.”
Paul Goodnight, whose work is featured in the gallery, discussed the rarity of such an effort in the Seaport area, telling the outlet, “This initiative is rare for this area,” Goodnight said during the grand opening. “Displaying my work here offers an opportunity to reach new audiences and showcase the excellence that exists within our community.”
According to Boston Magazine, Boston’s Seaport district transformed from a district that only contained fishing piers and dive bars in the 1960s and 1970s into a bustling area due in large part to public investment in the area in the 1990s. Though it was close to the city’s Financial District, until the Big Dig and the Boston Harbor cleanup were initiated, the area was underdeveloped and largely empty.
In stark contrast to areas like Roxbury, the Seaport district, despite its investment in creating a place that Bostonians can call home, not just someplace to visit, has remained one of Boston’s whitest neighborhoods. Jarred Johnson, director of Transit Matters, told the outlet that the City of Boston should have thought deeply about how entrenched its lack of racial diversity is while planning the district’s revitalization.
“The Seaport is sort of emblematic of Boston’s race problem. I don’t think anyone involved with its development specifically,” said Johnson. “We’re gonna build a neighborhood that’s almost entirely white and void of socioeconomic diversity.”
Johnson said, “I don’t think that was the intent. But refusing to acknowledge that Boston is a very segregated city and that there are different levels of opportunity for folks of different races—if they didn’t even acknowledge that, then there’s no way that the Seaport could have ever been successful from that point of view.”
Kimberly Barnes, programs manager at FPAC, spoke to the vision of Brewington, said she feels it is beneficial that people of color and other historically underrepresented groups in Boston see themselves in Seaport. “I have been seeing more people of color walking around, which is exciting. Every Wednesday we have Stone Soup Poetry at the Assemblage, and there’s a lot of people of color who participate in that. There’s engagement. It’s very slow, but it’ll be happening more and more”
Barnes continued, “One of my focuses is getting more people of color, more queer artists, and younger artists into the neighborhood. People of all classes. I really want to be inclusive, just encourage a lot of creativity and communication with each other.”
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