The Mayor's Neighborhood Gallery

2026 NATIONAL ARTS PROGRAM

By City of Boston Employees and Their Relatives

This exhibition continues on the 5th floor display case and the 7th floor. 

Every year since 1982, the National Arts Program has partnered with more than 90 organizations across the country to create workplace exhibitions where the artistic expression of employees and their families is recognized. This year, the City of Boston presents its seventh edition of the program, featuring 80 works by employees from Boston Public Schools, Boston Public Libraries, Boston Centers for Youth and Families, Boston Police Department, Boston Fire Department, various City of Boston offices, and their relatives.

The exhibition presents a wide variety of perspectives offered by public workers whose daily labor shapes the life of the city, and whose creative practices offer a parallel form of meaning-making. Across different mediums and subjects, the works gathered here reflect the full range of experience that individuals bring to civic life, the observations, relationships, memories, and interior worlds that exist alongside, and are often informed by, their public roles.

Through the works on view, visitors are invited to reflect on Jenny Holzer’s truism; "Everybody's work is equally important." This phrase, adopted as the guiding principle of the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, resonates with particular force in this context. It asks us to consider what we mean by work and to recognize that the labor of public service and the labor of creative expression are not separate endeavors, but expressions of the same commitment to contributing value to our city. In presenting the artistic practices of City employees and their families alongside one another, this exhibition affirms that creative work is not incidental to civic life, but integral to it.

To learn more about this program please visit nationalartsprogram.org/boston. This exhibition is organized by Galleries and Exhibitions Manager Mariana Rey and assisted by Paola Ruiz. 

To purchase an artwork please email mariana.rodriguezrey@boston.gov.