What combines 3D-printed monuments, sculptures designed for animals, and burning a ship model made entirely out of reeds?

The first ever Boston Triennial. 

Three years in the making, this art festival’s team has set up a “choose your own adventure” experience linking over 20 public art installations around Greater Boston. 

Kate Gilbert, executive director of the Boston Triennial, said in an interview with The Beacon that she hopes to entice Emerson students to interact with all the Triennial has to offer. The main art pieces will be on display until Oct. 31, with numerous related events scheduled during that time. 

“Urge to Merge,” the Triennial’s upcoming free event on Oct. 4 from 6 p.m. to midnight at 4 South Market St. in Faneuil Hall, is coordinated by artist and film collective New Red Order. Gilbert described it as a weaving together of public assembly, lectures, music, and film. 

“The artists are calling it a mini South by Southwest,” Gilbert said, referring to the film festival and conference event that occurs yearly in Austin, Texas. 

New Red Order also contributed an art piece for the Triennial installed in Marketplace Center, a 3D-printed ‘memorial’ to lesser-known English colonist Thomas Morton, critiquing the past and calling for solidarity with indigenous people. 

The Triennial curates all sorts of public art for its installations, all free and open to the public. One of their most unique pieces is by Brazilian artist Laura Lima, who reimagines one of the most seminal parts of art at all: who the viewer is and who the work is intended for. 

“When we asked her [Lima] to commission a project, she said, ‘I really want to work with urban wilds,’” said Gilbert. “We were sort of scratching our heads like, ‘where are there urban wilds?’”

Organizers suggested the Boston Nature Center, where she created sculptures for animals. She built rooms hanging between the trees within the center, using hats to build nest-like structures for the animals to rest in. According to Gilbert, her art is interesting to engage with, as it was not intended for human consumption. This exhibit shows new innovations that public art can take, as it redefined what the definition of “public” meant. 

There are many ways intrigued art enthusiasts can find and visit these unique pieces. The Triennial’s hub on 400 Newbury St., open Tuesday through Sunday, provides maps showing the locations of the public art pieces. Their website also has a visitor information section, offering links to example routes as well as an app that groups the art pieces by area, such as central Boston or Charlestown. 

Through the curation of this art festival and its connected events, the Boston Public Art Triennial is trying to push the boundaries of public art and expand its definition of it. 

“For a performance event, which happened on Sept. 12, artist Adela Goldbard created a 32-foot colonial replica ship that we put on at City Hall Plaza. It was made of species of invasive reeds that came over with colonization,” Gilbert said, citing that over 1000 people were in attendance. 

At the end of the three-part performance, the structure was lit up with fireworks, and then actual fire. 

“It’s literally an effigy to the colonial invasion, both people and invasive species that came to the Americas,” Gilbert said. 

“It was a moment to be collectively in public space and have an experience of healing,” Gilbert said. “Generally, in the last eight months or so, when we come together in public space, there’s usually some sort of protest or it’s a paid concert.”

Goldbard’s event was certainly neither of those. 

“It was freeing, I think, for a lot of folks,” Gilbert noted. “I heard an anecdote from a friend who was standing in the crowd who met a young woman who’s not from Boston, and she is part Native American, and she said, ‘my family keeps asking why I’m in Boston and not home. It’s because of things like this, because I’m here witnessing this moment where people are recognizing what colonization did to me and my ancestors, and you’re doing something about it.’” 

Gilbert believes artists have a unique ability to help us reimagine the world in new and exciting ways. Her hope is that through the power of art, Boston might strive to become an equitable and vibrant place where new ideas and forms of art constantly flourish. 

“Students coming into Emerson now might just expect that this is what happens in Boston all the time, right?” Gilbert posed. “That’s what I want them to think.”