The Mayor's Neighborhood Gallery

Boston Urban Wilds: CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF CONSERVATION AND COMMUNITY

Photographs by Lisa McCarty 

In this exhibit, Lisa McCarty highlights the unique environments that have been protected by the Boston Urban Wilds program, as well as the people who care for and commune with these wilds. McCarty collaborated with the Boston Parks and Recreation Department and the Boston Environment Department to photograph nineteen Urban Wilds and numerous community outreach events over the course of two years.

2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Boston Urban Wilds: A Natural Area Conservation Program. This landmark conservation study identified remaining areas of “ecological significance” scattered across Boston neighborhoods and in need of protection. Following the release of the study, the Boston Natural Areas Fund played a lead role in generating public support for acquiring these Urban Wilds as conservation land distinct from traditional parks. Over many years, these idealistic initiatives have made a significant impact. Many of the areas identified in the 1976 study have been permanently protected and unique partnerships have been developed between the City, non-profit organizations, and community groups to collaboratively steward the land.

As a result of these collective efforts and sustained City investment, an Urban Wilds Program was formally established and now cares for more than thirty woodlands and wetlands embedded within our neighborhoods. Today, the Urban Wilds provide Boston’s residents with access to forests, marshes, pollinator meadows, and other natural habitats rarely found in cities. Through intentional managed care, these wild spaces endure to support biodiversity and to help reduce the impacts of climate change, while also fostering community health, connectivity, and stewardship.

The photographs in this exhibition celebrate the beauty and resilience of the Urban Wilds today, and the community efforts that continue to sustain them. Without the work of past and present generations, many of the remarkable places represented in McCarty’s photographs would not exist.

Lisa McCarty is an artist, educator, and a naturalist-in-training. Equal parts forager and researcher, her projects are informed by long-term fieldwork, reading, and archive digging. Many of McCarty’s projects are inspired by unsung ecosystems or a lack of public records. McCarty has participated in over 100 exhibitions and screenings at venues including Amherst College, Cassilhaus, the Emily Dickinson Museum, Fruitlands Museum, the Griffin Museum of Photography, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, Microscope Gallery, Mimesis Documentary Festival, the New York Film Festival, the Thoreau Society, and the Visual Studies Workshop. Her recent books include Transcendental Concord and The Arboretum Aphorisms. McCarty received her MFA in Experimental & Documentary Arts from Duke University. She lives and works in Boston where she teaches at Northeastern University.

This exhibition is organized by Mariana Rey, Galleries and Exhibitions Manager, in collaboration with Alice Brown, Boston Environment Department, Nick Long, Boston Parks and Recreation and Lisa McCarty. To learn more about the artist please visit lisamccarty.com.