It’s the rare art exhibition that marks its arrival with a government citation affirming its civic value. But that’s what happened in February when the Institute of Contemporary Art opened “Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now,” a distillation of 49 years — and counting — of a storied Black Boston arts collective. Councillor Julia Mejia presented the group with a scroll stamped with a golden city seal, honoring the group for “shap[ing] Boston’s cultural landscape for nearly fifty years by creating space for Black artists to lead, create, and tell our stories with power and truth.”
Getting this far wasn’t easy, and neither is it all rosy right now for the African American Masters Artists in Residence Program, currently resident in a disheveled Jamaica Plain warehouse owned by its apparently-grudging, founding patron, Northeastern University. But let’s not let a relationship gone south sour a moment to be savored. There’s a story here, of determination, resilience, and no small amount of joy, and that’s where it starts.
