Karin Goodfellow Email & Phone Number

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Goodfellow leads the creation and implementation of policies and projects related to the reimagining of Boston’s public art and monument landscape and sets the vision and direction of the public art team. Ultimately curating new projects and programs to beautify the city, raise important conversations, and build collective histories and shared understanding, she also oversees partnerships with other cultural leaders involved in this work across the arts and culture and civic sectors. To advance these goals, she secured a $3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project and is spearheading the Un-monument | Re-monument | De-Monument: Transforming Boston initiative, to help further her vision of supporting a coalition of arts and culture leaders in a citywide multimedia dialogue that illuminates how public art and monuments can be opportunities for democratic conversation and community creativity.This position builds upon Goodfellow’s experience curating new projects and leading the City of Boston's monument strategies, including commissioning a 2017 audit of national approaches to monuments and related study of Boston's collection and overseeing the robust public processes leading to the eventual removal of two monuments in 2020. Goodfellow also designed and co-led the art process for the high-profile monument The Embrace honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, celebrating their relationship to the City of Boston rooted in community service, commitment, education, and activism, and reflective of the needs and spirit of today’s Boston.

Previously, Goodfellow served as Boston’s first Director of Public Art and Director of the Boston Art Commission for over 16 years and across four administrations. During her tenure, she played a pivotal role in developing the City’s burgeoning public art program, spearheading the development of policies and a curatorial vision in collaboration with the Boston Art Commission board and her team within the Mayor’s Office. She founded the City's key public art programs for long-term and temporary public art, including PaintBox (2008), Transformative Public Art (2013), and piloting the inclusion of public art in City capital projects (2013) which led to the creation of the Percent for Art program (2014). She also created the Boston Artists-in-Residence program (2015) and led several major public art consultancies—the Indigenous Public Art and Cultural Spaces consultancy, a mural consultancy with Street Theory, and a conservation consultancy with Daedalus.

Bachelor Of Arts

Ed.M.

Mba