The Cloud Foundation's Partnerships and Collaborative Programming

The Cloud Foundation seeks to extend the reach of its programming beyond Cloud Place by participating in collaborative projects with local arts and community organizations. These partnerships support intergenerational, cross-cultural, and multi-neighborhood interactions. By partnering with other organizations the Cloud seeks to expand opportunities for young people to participate in innovative arts education and community engagement.

Massachusetts State House, April 28 - May 2, 2008
Opening event and performance by the Spoken Word Curators: April 28 | 6-9pm

Designed as part of National Crime Victims Rights Awareness Week, this innovative exhibition is a collaboration between artists, activists, academics, museum professionals and community service providers working in the greater Boston area. Participants share a belief in the transformative power of art and art-making, and artists’ ability to confront, mediate, and challenge the prevalence of violence in contemporary society. The exhibition celebrates the diversity of visual cultures engaging with issues of political, sexual, domestic, and community violence that exist in Boston.

The Cloud Place Visual Art Curators will participate in Violence Transformed by selecting works by Boston-area teens to include in the exhibition at the State House, as well as curating a satellite show at Cloud Place. The Spoken Word Curators will perform at the State House and at Cloud Place during the week of the exhibition.

Artists wanted! Download submission form for teen art for Violence Transformed [PDF]

The Cloud Foundation hosted Gronk from October 5 – 12, 2007 in partnership with Opera Boston. Gronk is a Los Angeles-based artist with extensive experience in public art and set design as well as performance. His work has been described as "punk," "magical realist," "intentionally temporary," and "cartoonlike." In Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Mexico, and elsewhere he has designed stage sets, created murals using live performers, and worked with graffiti artists. Recently Gronk designed the set for Opera Boston's Ainadamar, an opera by Osvaldo Golijov based on the life of Federico García Lorca. Like Gronk's own work, Ainadamar explores ideas of identity, love, and mortality.

Click to watch a slideshow of Gronk's visit to Cloud Place

The 2007-08 Visual Art curators write: "The Teen Visual Art, Film, and Spoken Word Curators spent a week working with Gronk in the Cloud’s studios. We worked together to create four pieces in four days using paint, charcoal, and pastels as our mediums. It was amazing to work with an international artist – Gronk’s approach to his work inspired our creativity. Gronk helped us to start each piece but then stepped back and left the rest to our creative minds. The abstract style of the pieces reflects the different dynamics, emotions, and moods of the group during each session. You could say that these paintings represent a group of people moving into a community and leaving their mark. These marks are left for the next group to finish, add to, or draw over –layers of faces, words, and shapes build up to create the work of art. We all come from different places, have different experiences, and different ideas. These paintings bring all of the Curators together. As artists we’ve discovered that you can never predict the outcome of a new piece – it could be the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen or made."