Hello World – Boston

On April 23, 2022, 6:30 pm at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s Evans Way Park Façade (244 Fenway), TransCultural Exchange invited local artists, members of the Boston public and out-of-town guests to gather together in the Evans Way Park for a Boston group greeting to the world — a local show of gratitude to everyone, everywhere for weathering the pandemic with us, followed by a projection of TransCultural Exchange’s Hello World video, which features artists around the world sending us their greetings through music, dance and video pieces.

Coverage of the event by Boston Neighborhood Network Media will be here as soon as it is available.

The event for April 23 was planned months in events and sadly in the months leading up to it much happened. We lost our webmaster and dear friend, the artist Rudi Punzo who while battering cancer, tirelessly made the more than 500 webpages that make up the virtual travelogue that is Hello World. As a token of our gratitude, we dedicated Hello World: Hello Boston to him.

We also dedicated Hello World: Hello Boston to the artists and venues in Ukraine who took the time during the pandemic to participate in Hello World, to show the world their concern for all of us. For Hello World: Hello Boston we added a gathering together and broadcasting of our concern and solidarity with them and everyone in Ukraine. TransCultural Exchange and everyone who joined at this evening hope that with this gathering and the documentation of this act in photographs, television footage and on our website that we will reach the people of Ukraine to let them know that we are committed to supporting their brave efforts in the face of Russia’s ongoing unjustified war on them, violations of their freedom and heartbreaking displays of brutality.

TransCultural Exchange believes that situations, like that in Ukraine, remind us of the importance of global partners and friendships not only in our own neighborhood but across the nation and beyond.

This project is supported by a Transformative Public Art grant from the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture with special thanks to the Colleges of the Fenway, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston Neighborhood Network Media and the Boston Chinese Photography Association. The program is also supported in part by a grant from the Boston Cultural Council/Reopen Creative Boston Fund, administered by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture with special thanks to Trader Joes’s for the donation of sunflowers.