News

Dan Borelli (MDes ’12) receives ArtPlace Grant

The Nyanza Superfund site was a giant lemon for the town of Ashland, Massachusetts, but Dan Borelli, director of exhibitions and MDes graduate in Art, Design and the Public Domain, is intent on making lemonade. He’s just received a $75,000 grant from ArtPlace America (ArtPlace) to create an oral and visual history of the community’s relationship with the site, which will live at the local library.

“Illuminating Futures: Ashland, Massachusetts,” an extension of Borelli’s 2012 thesis project, will involve changing the hues of the town’s streetlights in relation to the contaminants still present in the soil. He will also design and create a polychromatic public garden that will reference the chemical dye pollutants of the past while further remediating the soil. It’s all in the service of propelling a public conversation about the town-wide trauma and helping the community recover its resiliency.

Learn more about the Master in Design Studies (MDes) program in Art, Design and the Public Domain.

Check out all the ArtPlace grant projects, which include several by Loeb Fellowship alumni and incoming Loeb Fellow Jamie Blosser.