Praise Shadows Art Gallery and Boston Art Review are partnering to present the 2024 Emerging Boston Art Writing Fellowship. The program supports three individuals based in Boston ages 18–21 who are interested in expanding their knowledge of the city’s contemporary art community through hands-on experience writing reviews, artist interviews, and exhibition texts while deepening their understanding of the operations behind a commercial gallery. This fellowship is not a traditional internship, but rather a curriculum-based program with learning at the center.
This is a five-month commitment that began with a crash course in art writing led by the team at Boston Art Review. In this part of the program (February–March), individuals partook in weekly workshops and field trips to cultivate their writing practices and relationships within Boston’s art community. At the end of this portion, each fellow was paired with a mentor to formally pitch, develop, and complete a project that will be published on the Boston Art Review website in summer 2024.
For the second half of the program (April–May), fellows will step into paid part-time internships at Praise Shadows Art Gallery in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner. Here, they will learn the inner workings of a contemporary art gallery, including marketing and press release writing and engaging with the general public about the work on view.
In addition to workshops with local writers and arts leaders, fellows will participate in sessions with editors from Triple Canopy and Book Art Review (part of Center for Book Arts) and meet with an executive at Higher Ground (the Obamas’ media company), among many others.
The schedule and specificity of curriculum, including workshop topics and final deliverables, are subject to change based on the fellows’ availability and personal goals. Fellows will receive a $900 stipend from Boston Art Review upon completion of the program and hourly payment for hours worked with Praise Shadows.
Our 2024 fellows are:
Helina Almonte (she/her) is a Dominican spoken word poet raised in Lynn, MA. She is currently a third-year student studying communication, art, and Latino studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. As a multidisciplinary artist, she is interested in performance, experimental video art, and photography. Her work explores topics of self-discovery, coming of age, personal archives, and identity. During spring of 2024, Almonte will serve as the youth arts education specialist at ACEDONE, an African community and economic development organization based in Boston. As a member of the Youth Adolescence Task Force in Lynn, she is a devoted advocate for creative youth development in her community.
Dylan Bunyak (she/her) is a Queer Disabled writer and art-lover from San Diego, California. As a first-year at Wellesley College, she is hoping to pursue a double major in philosophy and art history with a focus in education. She has published flash fiction and poetry in All Existing Magazine, Blunt Force Journal, and Flip Media and produced theater reviews for the Old Globe and the La Jolla Playhouse Teen Council. Since moving to Boston, Dylan has also worked with the Disability Justice Youth Center to facilitate a workshop on the school-to-prison pipeline. Dylan loves finding community in art spaces and is always up for a visit to a new play or exhibition!
Erwin Kamuene (he/him) is a South African-born and Massachusetts-raised writer studying English at Emmanuel College. Though his major is focused on editing and publishing, Kamuene is first and foremost an admirer of art, literature, and film. In his writing—which has been published in the Boston Hassle film section and Decadent Cosmos literary zine—Kamuene is interested in uplifting the work of overshadowed creators, paying particular attention to how personal or regional histories influence their practices. Kamuene is currently doing archival work for his college’s sociology department and is looking forward to tackling reviews of contemporary visual art exhibitions in the region.
Read more about our 2024 fellows here.
About Boston Art Review
Founded in October of 2017, Boston Art Review (BAR) is an independent publication committed to facilitating active discourse around contemporary art in Boston. BAR actively fosters the work of both emerging and established artists, writers, critics, curators, and scholars and is committed to uplifting the work of underrepresented individuals and communities. Boston Art Review provides a space for critical perspectives, interviews, reviews, artist projects, and collective initiatives. Through our website, newsletter, social media, events, and print publication, Boston Art Review stands as an accessible, go-to guide for contemporary art in Boston. Learn more about the team members who will be contributing to this program.
About Praise Shadows
Praise Shadows Art Gallery is a Boston-area art gallery founded in late 2020. It is a hybrid space emphasizing exhibitions by emerging and mid-career contemporary artists, a retail space for art books and lower-value works made by artists, and site for mentorship for young talent in the Greater Boston area.
Support
Boston Art Review is supported through the BAR Giving Circle. Programs like this are made possible with support from art_works, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston Cultural Council, the Wagner Foundation, and Mass Cultural Council. If you’re interested in learning more about how to support this program, please contact Jameson Johnson.