Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Free Admission to ICA Boston

The ICA is offering FREE admission for all on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, January 20. Free advanced tickets are required and will be available to reserve beginning on Sunday, January 19 at 10 AM. Celebrate the legacy of MLK with art-making and three acclaimed exhibitions, plus relax and recharge in the waterfront <a href="https://www.icaboston.org/ica-wine-coffee-bar/">ICA Wine + Coffee Bar</a>. Spend your MLK Day exploring <a href="https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/charles-atlas-about-time/">Charles Atlas: About Time</a>. Plus, don’t miss the last day of <a href="https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/tau-lewis/">Tau Lewis: Spirit Level</a> and <a href="https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/gun-violence-memorial-project/">the Gun Violence Memorial Project</a> before they close on Jan 20!

Institute of Contemporary Art

Wordplay

Highlighting the rich interplay between imagery and text and the related practices of looking and reading, Wordplay draws primarily from the ICA’s permanent collection to showcase how contemporary artists have played with words to animate and expand their art practices. Text has been part of visual expression for centuries, but “text art” as a genre began to proliferate with the emergence of conceptual art in the 1960s. Artists in the exhibition use text to probe philosophical questions, express and subvert political messages, challenge notions of identity, and connect their artwork with multiple references, writers, and cultural icons. This exhibition will feature many recently acquired works that have never been on view by artists Kenturah Davis, Taylor Davis, Joe Wardwell, and Rivane Neuenschwander, alongside work by Jenny Holzer and Glenn Ligon who have pioneered the creative engagement with language.

Hew Locke: The Procession

A procession is part of life; people gather and move together to celebrate, worship, protest, mourn, escape, or call for change. These expressions are all at the heart of&nbsp;The Procession, an ambitious installation first commissioned by Tate Britain, UK, and making its North American debut at the ICA Watershed.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Through his multivalent practice, Hew Locke OBE RA (born 1959 in Edinburgh, United Kingdom; lives and works in London) explores individual and collective relationships to power, cultural memory, and migration. The artist spent his formative years in the then newly independent country of Guyana, a former British colony, where he became fascinated by the symbols through which individuals and groups assert their identities. His work has touched on a wide array of subjects, from British colonialism and Caribbean carnival to political iconographies and public monuments. He investigates these ideas through materials such as cardboard, costume jewelry, and repurposed emblems of British identity, creating elaborate artworks with layered and expansive meanings that engage with the histories and contemporary legacies of colonialism and empire.&nbsp; Drawing upon a series of motifs and concerns that have occupied the artist over decades,&nbsp;The Procession&nbsp;is a colorful gathering of approximately 140 life-size sculptures of masked figures of all ages and abilities adorned in printed fabrics and embroideries—Caribbean carnival queens, dancers, refugees, horseback-mounted military figures, fishers, laborers, pregnant women, children, drummers, and flag bearers. The forward-facing figures carry props or wear costumes that reproduce imagery from historical paintings, advertisements, share certificates, maps, and photographs, including reproductions of the artist’s own work. Poetic and powerful, this installation draws on the metaphor of the voyage to, in the artist’s words, “reflect on the cycles of history, and the ebb and flow of cultures, people, finance, and power.” Seen within the harborside setting of the ICA Watershed in East Boston,&nbsp;The Procession&nbsp;is a compelling and immersive invitation for visitors to cross historical and narrative time in an experience that delights the eyes and expands the mind.&nbsp;&nbsp; Credits Hew Locke: The Procession&nbsp;was originally commissioned by Tate Britain for its 2022&nbsp;Tate Britain&nbsp;Commission. The ICA Watershed presentation is organized by Ruth Erickson, Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, and Anni A. Pullagura, Consulting Assistant Curator, in collaboration with Tate. Support for&nbsp;Hew Locke: The Procession&nbsp;is provided by&nbsp;David Feinberg and Marina Kalb, and&nbsp;an anonymous donor. ICA Watershed programs are supported by Eastern Bank. &nbsp; Installation view, Hew Locke: The Procession, Tate Britain Commission 2022, Tate Britain, Duveen Galleries, London, 2022. Photo by Joe Humphrys. © Hew Locke. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2022 © Tate

ICA Watershed

Watershed Dance Workshop: Caporales of the Andes

Learn about Caporales, a traditional Andean dance. As described by the <a href="https://festival.si.edu/2017/on-the-move/caporales-unidos/smithsonian">Smithsonian Folklife Festival,</a> this high-energy dance, “acknowledges the African slave experience of Bolivia, and honors Afro-Bolivian identity and cultural expressions.” This interactive workshop at the Watershed will be co-hosted with <a href="https://veronicaroblesculturalcenter.org/">Veronica Robles Cultural Center (VROCC)</a>, an East Boston arts organization that seeks to foster, share, and celebrate Latino cultures. Performers from East Boston and <a href="https://sansimonne.com/ing/">Caporales San Simon New England</a> will join Robles to share the history, cultural influences (Bolivian indigenous, African, European), and traditions of Caporales followed by a demonstration of this folkloric dance.

ICA Watershed 

Summer Teen Night

Teens take over the museum with art-making, performances, dancing, games, and fun!

Wu Tsang: Of Whales at the Institute of Contemporary Art

Wu Tsang (born 1982 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is a cross-disciplinary artist who makes narrative and documentary film, live performance, and video installations. The immersive installation Of Whales forms part of her filmic trilogy inspired by Herman Melville’s classic 1851 American novel Moby Dick. Of Whales offers a poetic meditation on the perspective of a sperm whale, who plunges to the depths of the ocean for an hour at a time, surfacing occasionally for a breath of air. Created on the Unity gaming platform with XR (extended reality) technologies, the dynamically generated real-time video and sound installation immerses viewers in a lush, dreamy oceanscape for imagination, contemplation, and provocation. First presented at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, the work features a musical score composed by Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda, with Tapiwa Svosve, Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, Miao Zhao, and Ahya Simone. The score blends horns, saxophone, clarinet, and contrabass, in a multi-layered soundscape that fills the entire gallery space. At the ICA, Of Whales is presented in a gallery adjacent to the Boston Harbor, connecting audiences to the ICA’s waterside location and referencing New England’s whaling history.

Play Date: Parade + Party

Please note: Play Date in June, July, and August will take place at the <a href="https://www.icaboston.org/ica-watershed/">ICA Watershed</a>, located in East Boston! Join us at the ICA Watershed for a day of family fun featuring activities in connection with <a href="https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/hew-locke-the-procession/">Hew Locke: The Procession</a>. Enjoy a live musical performance, learn about Caribbean Carnival’s history and significance, and create wearable art inspired by the costumes of Carnival. Get ready to parade and party!  *On Saturday, July 27th, museum admission is FREE for families when accompanied by kids ages 12 and under, with up to 2 adults per family. Timed tickets must be reserved online in advance for Watershed shuttle boats. Use the code PLAYDATE when reserving your ticket(s). Advance tickets are strongly recommended; day-of tickets are not guaranteed. For access to the ICA Watershed from Seaport, visitors should select the General Admission + Water Shuttle ticket. Admission to the Watershed is always free. The Watershed is located within the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina in East Boston at 256 Marginal Street. Accessible parking is available at the Watershed. Limited street parking is available nearby. Visitors can also reach the Watershed by public transportation – the building is 0.5 miles from Maverick Station on the Blue Line.

Watershed Workshop: Taíno Community and Culture 

Delve into the living culture of the Taíno Peoples with members of the Higuayagua Taíno community of the Caribbean. Explore the rich history of the Taíno, which has been present since time immemorial and continues to resonate in the Caribbean and beyond. This interactive session is presented in collaboration with the Community Healing Center and is open to both English and Spanish speakers.  This event has been organized to accompany the ICA Watershed exhibition—<a href="https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/hew-locke-the-procession/">Hew Locke: The Procession</a>. Poetic and powerful, the installation draws on the metaphor of the voyage to, in the artist’s words, “reflect on the cycles of history, and the ebb and flow of cultures, people, finance, and power.”

Can I pass? Women of African descent in conversation 

In celebration of International Day of Women of African Descent (July 25), join a gallery talk on&nbsp;&nbsp;Firelei Báez&nbsp;led by women from Hispanola. How do we heal? How do we uplift? How do we move forward?&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jellycat Summer Birthday Bash

Jellycats are taking over the ICA Store! Celebrate Jellycat’s 25th birthday featuring new Summer 2024 introductions, a Jellycat giveaway, and more fun surprises! Be there, or be jelly!

Summer Stages Dance @ ICA/Boston: Jasmine Hearn Memory Fleet Open Rehearsal

Summer Stages Dance @ ICA/Boston presents a special opportunity to see an artist at work. Following a week of residency to develop their newest project Memory Fleet, interdisciplinary artist and choreographer Jasmine Hearn will share with audiences their development process in an open rehearsal featuring movement, improvisation, conversation, and song. In Memory Fleet, Hearn and her collaborators incorporate performance and archive work that centers the remembering of choreographies of care – dances and gestures of Black mothering passed on through generational lineages.

Summer Stages Dance @ ICA/Boston: Shamel Pitts | TRIBE Sneak Preview Showing

Summer Stages Dance @ ICA is proud to present a special work-in-progress showing by choreographer Shamel Pitts. Following their highly acclaimed and sold out performances at the museum, Pitts and the artist collective TRIBE return to begin work on their newest project Marks of RED, an Afrofuturist meditation on the “womb space.” Pitts and his collaborators will explore this metaphorical space of regeneration, enfolding, rupture, and potential. Be among the first to see this new work take shape. Shamel Pitts, a 2024 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, is a performance artist, choreographer, conceptual artist, dancer, spoken word artist, director, and teacher. Born in Brooklyn, NY, Pitts began his dance training at LaGuardia High School of Music &amp; Art and Performing Arts and, simultaneously, at The Ailey School. He is a first prize winner in The National Arts Competition from YoungArts. Pitts went on to receive his BFA in dance from The Juilliard School and was awarded the Martha Hill Award for excellence in dance. He began his dance career in Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance and BJM_Danse Montreal. Pitts danced with Batsheva Dance Company for seven years under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin and is a certified teacher of Gaga movement language. Pitts has created a triptych of award-winning multidisciplinary performances, with his arts collective TRIBE, known as his “BLACK series,” which has toured extensively to many festivals &amp; performance spaces around the world since 2016. He is an adjunct professor at The Juilliard School, a guest faculty member at Princeton University, New York University, Wesleyan University and has been an artist in residence at Harvard University. He is the recipient of a Princess Grace Award in Choreography, a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow, a Jacob’s Pillow artist-in-residence, and a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow. Learn more about TRIBE &gt;&gt; itsatribe.org | itsatribe

Courage to Care

Get creative with us in&nbsp;Courage to Care, an installation by Boston artist Sabrina Dorsainvil in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icaboston.org/learning/art-lab/" target="_blank">Bank of America Art Lab</a>. Explore characters and stories brought to life through a mural designed just for the ICA! Each story reveals an act of care and serves as inspiration for reflecting on the ways you give and receive care in the world. What does care look like for yourself?&nbsp;How do you care for your community?

Play Date: Dress + Dazzle

Join us at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icaboston.org/ica-watershed/" target="_blank">ICA Watershed</a>&nbsp;for a day of family fun featuring activities in connection with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/hew-locke-the-procession/" target="_blank">Hew Locke: The Procession</a>. Consider what it means to be in a procession: What do processions celebrate, commemorate, or challenge? What do you bring, wear, or do during one? Who would you invite to join you? Explore the themes of the exhibition through art-making and programs by East Boston community organizations!&nbsp;Reserve free admission tickets online in advance*. All activities are drop-in, first come first served, space is limited. Stay tuned for more information on activities and partnerships! *On Saturday, June 29, museum admission is FREE for families when accompanied by kids ages 12 and under, with up to 2 adults per family. Timed tickets must be reserved online in advance for Watershed shuttle boats. Use the code PLAYDATE when reserving your ticket(s). Advance tickets are strongly recommended; day-of tickets are not guaranteed. For access to the ICA Watershed from Seaport, visitors should select the General Admission + Water Shuttle ticket. The Watershed is located within the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina in East Boston at 256 Marginal Street. Accessible parking is available at the Watershed. Limited street parking is available nearby. Visitors can also reach the Watershed by public transportation – the building is 0.5 miles from Maverick Station on the Blue Line.

Watershed Gallery Talk: Anni Pullagura on Hew Locke: The Procession

Join Anni Pullagura, Yale Center for British Art Postdoctoral Fellow and&nbsp;ICA Consulting Assistant Curator&nbsp;for a deep dive into&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/hew-locke-the-procession/" target="_blank">Hew Locke: The Procession</a>&nbsp;at the ICA Watershed. In this drop-in program, Pullagura will explore the artist’s inspiration,&nbsp;motifs, and unique symbolic&nbsp;material choices. Learn more about Hew Locke and&nbsp;The Procession,&nbsp;which explores why people gather and move together.&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="https://www.icaboston.org/ica-watershed/" target="_blank">Find directions on how to get to the Watershed</a> Hew Locke: The Procession&nbsp;was originally commissioned by Tate Britain for its 2022&nbsp;Tate Britain&nbsp;Commission. The ICA Watershed presentation is organized by Ruth Erickson, Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, and Anni A. Pullagura, Consulting Assistant Curator, in collaboration with Tate.

S22: conversations

Wondering what to do in Boston? Places to eat? Free activities? Good for a group? Date night spot? Girls night out? The best things to do? Ask Joyraft!

Best places to go in Boston? Things to do? Places to eat?

Questions & answers about things to do in Boston

Recs 💬

Community recs 💬

S4: top picks

The most fun, cool and unique things to do in Boston. Can’t miss events, shows and experiences. Concerts, restaurants, bars, free things in Boston and beyond.

The most fun and cool events happening around Boston

Hot and new things to do in Boston

Hot & new

Hot & new 🔥

S11: happening this weekend

What to do in Boston this weekend? From festivals, concerts, performances, free events, screenings and more, Joyraft has the best things to do in Boston.

25+ things to do in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville this weekend

Things to do in Boston this weekend

This wknd

This weekend for you

S21: roundups

Our top picks: outdoor dining, free events, spring festivals, best bars, upcoming concerts, museum parties - the latest in and around Boston.  Slug: joyraft-top-picks-best-things-to-do-boston-ma

Top picks of the best things to do in and around Boston

Joyraft picks: Boston’s best things to do

Roundups ⭐️

Curated by Joyraft ⭐️

S28: calendar experiences

This week in Boston

This week in Boston 📆

This week 📆

S20: c+d experiences

Discover new, unique events and experiences happening in and around Boston. Perfect for date night, good for a group or with a friend. Be the first to know.

The newest events happening in and around Boston

The newest events on Joyraft

Just added

Just added to Joyraft

S16: editor picks

The most unique and can’t miss things coming up in Boston / Cambridge / Somerville and beyond. Festivals, food, drinks, fairs, concerts, art and free activities.

Unique and Can’t Miss Things to Do in Boston

Can’t-miss things to do in Boston 🚨

Can't-miss things to do 🚨

S2 (A): top experiences

The most popular things to do on Joyraft. Concerts, restaurants, bars, events, parties, openings, kid friendly, date ideas, free things in Boston and beyond.

Top 20 things to do in Boston

Top 20: Joyraft’s most popular

Top 20

Top 20 on Joyraft

S3 (A): trending experiences

Discover can’t miss events and things to do in Boston. The most fun, unique and cool events coming to the Boston area this spring and summer.

The hottest events happening in Boston

Trending events on Joyraft

Trending 📈

S17: interest based

Your guide to everything free in and around Boston. From events, to fairs, to festivals, to outdoors. Joyraft has all the free events happening near you.

100+ free things to do in Boston and beyond

Free things to do in Boston

Free things to do

S19: interest based

Discover kid-friendly fun in Boston, Massachusetts, and surrounding areas! Enjoy hands-on exhibits at the Boston Children’s Museum, explore the New England Aquarium, and visit the Franklin Park Zoo. Find parks, playgrounds, and seasonal events perfect for families across Massachusetts.

Top 20 kid-friendly things to do in Boston, MA

Kid-friendly things to do in Boston

Kid-friendly events

S18: interest based

Where to eat and drink in Boston? Joyraft has Boston’s newest bars, restaurants and specials. Drinks and pre fixe dinner menus. Cambridge & Somerville too.