Creative Resilience: Partnering with the Artists at St. Francis House and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts

 “Creative Resilience,” our project focus for 2024-2025, was developed to foster a potential partnership between the artists working in the expressive art studio at St. Francis House—New England's largest day-shelter for homeless individuals in Downtown Boston—and faculty and students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts. A series of workshops, along with opportunities for shared conversations, critiques, and exhibition visits forged important connections. The success of these experiences resulted in our 2025-2026 project initiative —“Inventive Futures”—that has included a new course at the SMFA, with a culminating exhibition, and the possibilities for community-engaged participatory research.

The connection between the Program for Public Humanities and the artists at St Francis House began in the summer of 2023, when five panels featuring their work was added to the “Endurance Streets” installation at 116 Harrison Avenue (see below). You can view those panels here. We have continued to work with some of these artists in our current collaborations.