2025 Boston Mayoral Forum on Arts & Culture Recap
In the center: Karthik Subramanian, Managing Director of Company One Theatre, and Summer L. Williams, Director of C1’s production of The Meeting Tree, provide welcoming remarks at the Boston Mayoral Forum in front of the set of The Meeting Tree. An ASL interpreter is seated to the left.
WATCH THE FORUM RECORDING:
On July 30, 2025, Boston’s creative community convened at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester for the 2025 Boston Mayoral Forum on Arts & Culture. More than 750 artists, cultural organizers, and arts advocates registered for the forum, which was hosted by the Create the Vote Boston Coalition and MASSCreative, to hear mayoral candidates Michelle Wu, Josh Kraft, and Domingos DaRosa respond to their questions and concerns about the creative sector in Boston.
Before the formal program began, attendees participated in a meet-and-greet with City Council–at-Large candidates, where they had the opportunity to ask candidates how they would advocate for artists and creatives from their positions on the City Council.
YOUR QUESTIONS FOR THE CANDIDATES
Jared Bowen, host of GBH’s The Culture Show, moderated the forum and asked questions that audience members submitted in advance. Organizers did not open the forum for live questions from the audience, but were invited to submit their questions using the online registration form. Overwhelmingly, forum-goers wanted to know how Boston’s next mayor would support a thriving arts ecosystem through funding, education, cultural policy, and creative space preservation.
Each of the candidates were asked questions that followed five general themes: their vision for the sector, how they would invest in its success through funding and resource allocation, what they will do to address artist displacement and creative space loss, housing and affordability, and how they will support arts education and youth engagement.
The questions that the Steering and Host Committee shared with the candidates were as follows:
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How do you define a thriving arts and culture sector? What metrics will you use to assess Boston’s progress towards your definition?
What is your vision for the Office of Arts and Culture and its Chief in your administration?
The position of Chief of Arts and Culture has been vacant since January 2025. What is your plan for engaging the sector in the hiring and onboarding of the new Chief?
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Boston’s arts and cultural sector requires public investment to deliver the economic and community benefits that residents enjoy. What is your plan for investing in the long-term growth of the sector, including sustained operational support for arts and cultural non-profits?
What specific funding mechanisms and resources is your administration committing to create and sustain permanent, affordable creative spaces? How will you ensure these investments reach communities most affected by displacement?
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Creative space displacement is pushing artists to Lowell, Fitchburg, Lynn, and Providence. What regional strategies will your administration pursue to address this issue beyond our city boundaries, and how can we ensure that our solutions don't simply export the problem to neighboring communities?
The Boston Planning and Development Agency’s policy requires commercial developments to dedicate 15-20% of their sites to open space as a public benefit. What specific policies will you implement to ensure commercial developments dedicate square footage to new arts and cultural space as a public benefit?
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Artists and creative sector workers struggle to afford to live in Boston. What is your plan to increase financially attainable housing for residents?
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There has been a substantial investment by the City of Boston to hire more arts teachers in Boston Public Schools. Now that ESSER funding has ended and with federal cuts to public education and arts and culture, what is your plan to ensure every student, regardless of which school they attend, continues to have access to quality, sequential, in-school arts education?
Creative Youth Development organizations in Boston have led the way nationally in providing young people with creative workforce job skills, community leadership opportunities, and pathways to secondary education and specialized job training programs. How do you plan to scale these pathways to creative work and support creative youth development efforts in the city?
HOW THE CANDIDATES RESPONDED
MICHELLE WU: INSTITUTIONALIZING EQUITY AND ARTIST RESILIENCE
Michelle Wu responds to questions from Jared Bowen at the Boston Mayoral Forum.
As incumbent mayor, Michelle Wu leaned on her record while illustrating a vision for a Boston where the arts are not just funded, but structurally embedded in city life.
Mayor Wu’s core strategies for the creative economy include:
Public Investment in Arts Infrastructure: Wu highlighted her administration’s $26 million in ARPA investment, supporting organizations serving youth, LGBTQ+ communities, and artists of color.
Artist Displacement Metrics and Permitting Reform: Wu’s team is tracking metrics like permits for public art, art space stability, and arts-based programming. She is interested in streamlining permitting processes and ensuring that city policies prevent further displacement and support accessibility. She discussed how City-owned spaces in Allston-Brighton and Humphreys Street Studios are being transformed into rehearsal and arts venues to retain artists who have experienced displacement and prevent further loss of the community.
Embedding Arts in City Planning: Wu sees artists as essential to climate resilience, anti-displacement efforts, and public health. She’s integrating cultural strategy into broader urban planning.
Legal Defense of Cultural Access: She’s taken the federal government to court “six times” to defend LGBTQ+ and DEI-focused grants, reinforcing that Boston will not compromise on inclusive cultural values.
Leadership Commitment: Though the Chief of Arts and Culture position has been vacant since January, Wu promised the city is in “an active search” for a new cultural leader who will be rooted in community.
“The arts are absolutely critical to providing the fuel and the momentum and the care that can keep us moving forward.”
JOSH KRAFT: PUBLIC-PRIVATE INNOVATION AND CULTURAL INCLUSION
Josh Kraft responds to questions from Jared Bowen at the Boston Mayoral Forum.
Mayoral candidate Josh Kraft offered a collaborative, systems-oriented vision rooted in partnerships and cultural celebration.
Josh Kraft’s core strategies for the creative economy include:
Public-Private Funding Solutions: Kraft called for deeper collaboration between the city and philanthropic and private entities to fill funding gaps left by dwindling federal resources.
Commercial Rent Control (Opt-In): He proposed a voluntary rent stabilization program for commercial arts spaces, incentivizing landlords to preserve affordable studios and performance venues.
"All of Our Roots" Cultural Series: Kraft proposed a citywide series of multicultural events to celebrate Boston’s racial and cultural diversity.
Hiring a Visionary Arts Chief: He emphasized finding someone “inspired and inspiring” and “unconventional” who is approachable and understands the lived experience of artists and culture bearers.
Arts Therapy and Trauma Support: Kraft stressed the importance of creative outlets in mental health and healing, calling for expanded arts therapy programming in schools and neighborhoods.
“Art and culture have the power to heal, to bring us together, and to make people feel seen.”
DOMINGOS DAROSA: RADICAL EQUITY AND NEIGHBORHOOD POWER
Domingos DaRosa speaks at the Boston Mayoral Forum.
Mayoral candidate Domingos DaRosa called for bold, grassroots-focused change to uplift cultural workers from the ground up.
Domingos DaRosa’s core strategies for the creative economy include:
Redirect Police Overtime to Arts Education: DaRosa wants to reallocate portions of police budgets to arts programming in Boston Public Schools, replacing “six cops” with “six art teachers.”
Neighborhood-Based Cultural Leadership: He proposed installing Chiefs of Arts and Culture in each of Boston’s 23 neighborhoods, decentralizing leadership and ensuring hyper-local cultural support.
Arts as an Anti-Poverty Strategy: DaRosa tied arts education to long-term prosperity, envisioning creative careers as a pathway out of systemic poverty and violence.
Fighting Cultural Erasure: He warned that Boston has a history of “killing culture,” and emphasized protecting cultural identity through food, music, public space, and events.
Cutting Bureaucracy, Elevating Community: He pushed for direct community decision-making in arts policy and criticized delays in cultural leadership appointments.
“Culture isn’t just about celebration: it’s about survival, pride, and purpose.”
HOW THEY COMPARE:
The forum concluded with a powerful spoken word performance by Regie Gibson, Massachusetts’ inaugural Poet Laureate.
FINAL REFLECTIONS
Each candidate offered a distinct blueprint for how the city could support its cultural workers, institutions, and storytellers. This year’s forum demonstrated that Boston’s creative sector has numbers and political power. As MASSCreative’s Director of Organizing, Richeline Cadet, stated:
“This forum was a really important part of making sure members of the creative community in Boston are engaged in this election and driving the direction of the sector. This is not a time for artists to sit on the sidelines - this is a time for them to flex their political power and advocate for what they need.”
This forum was the first step towards engaging with Boston’s next mayor about arts and culture policy and deepening the existing partnership between the creative community and City Hall.
Boston Mayoral Forum Steering Committee:
ArtsBoston, #ARTSTAYSHERE Coalition, Company One Theatre, Dorchester Art Project, GrubStreet, and MASSCreative.
Boston Mayoral Forum Host Committee:
Abilities Dance, AfroDesiaCity Productions LLC, ArtsBoston, #ARTSTAYSHERE Coalition, BAMS Fest Inc, Boston Art Review, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston Children's Museum, Boston Lyric Opera, Castle of our Skins, Charlestown Rehearsal Studios Tenants Association, Company One Theatre, Dorchester Art Project, EdVestors, Embrace Boston, Expressive Art Studios, GrubStreet, Humphreys Street Studios, MASSCreative, National Center of Afro-American Artists, Photosbymarcia LLC, Roxbury Cultural District, SpeakEasy Stage, Temple Gill, The Annette McCarty Art Studio, The Fenway Alliance, The Network for Arts Administrators of Color (NAACBoston), The Record Co., and Veronica Robles Cultural Center (VROCC). With support from our exclusive public media event partners at GBH.
