Each year, MassArt students create over 300 ceramic bowls for Haley House’s Souper Bowl fundraiser, supporting food and housing justice programs. Attendees select handmade bowls and sample soups from local organizations.

Leading up to the event, Haley House community members are invited to make and glaze bowls at MassArt, while MassArt collaborators are invited to cook in Haley House’s prep kitchen.

Wee Free Black Mamas is a mass creative action for kids and families. The event honors Black mothers who cannot afford bail and are separated from their kids, awaiting trial. This is part of a national effort to bail out Black mothers in time for Mother’s Day. Along with Families for Justice as Healing and the Emancipation Initiative, together these organizations raise funds to reunite Black mothers with their families.

Since 2020, RIRJ Boston has worked with BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists to imagine and create racially just futures with their communities. This collaboration between MassArt’s CACP, the City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, and the Surdna Foundation has funded over fifty BIPoC artists living & working in Boston with financial and technical resources. Civic Design courses, created in collaboration with the Design Studio for Social Intervention’s Design Gym, have supported artists and organizers in building practices at the intersection of art and culture, politics, and movement building.

Each fall, these tours invite MassArt first year students to experience extraordinary public artworks in Roxbury, hear from local public artists, and deepen their awareness and appreciation for all Roxbury has to offer.