Programs
Percent-for-Art: Implemented via City Ordinance, Percent-for-Art requires that one percent of the construction costs on municipal capital investment be designated for use in developing site-responsive public artwork.
Art Conservation: Provides consistent professional care to the artworks in the City-owned public art collection, including sculpture, murals, works of art structurally integrated into buildings, and electronic and time-based media.
Gallery 344: The public gallery, located at 344 Broadway, presents artistic projects and artists that deal specifically with art in the public realm.
Cambridge River Festival: An annual outdoor festival of the arts drawing 200,000 audience members to celebrate and enjoy music, dance, theater, poetry, visual art and food.
Grant Program: Awards funding to high-quality artistic projects that provide a direct benefit to residents in the City.
Summer in the City: An annual series of multicultural artistic and interactive events designed specifically for youth between the ages of 4 and 11 years of age. Events feature a lively mix of dance, song, theatre and puppetry and occur in parks and open spaces throughout the City’s thirteen neighborhoods during out of school time in July and August.
Creative Marketplace: Three programs that boost the visibility of the arts and drive local economic activity, including Community Supported Art, a corporate exhibitions program, and the Cambridge Arts Challenge.
Cambridge Arts is proud to participate in the Card to Culture program, broadening accessibility to cultural programming via a collaboration between the Mass Cultural Council and the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) Nutrition Program, and the Massachusetts Health Connector. All Cambridge Arts programs are free and open to all. See the complete list of participating organizations offering EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare discounts.
Street Performer Program: Supported by City Ordinance and designed to attract a wide variety of artists, musicians and performers to engage the public in squares, parks and other public locations throughout the City. Cambridge Arts issues permits and regularly monitors the program to ensure positive relationships between performers, business and residents.
Open Studios: A collaboration of Cambridge artists, organizations, and businesses, this event literally puts Cambridge artists on the map with a guide directing visitors to the participating artists' studios and common venues throughout the city.
Poetry Ambassadors: Names a Cambridge poet as ‘literary ambassador’ for the City through a public nomination and election process. Cambridge Arts launched this program to celebrate, support, and nurture the City’s rich and diverse poet community while stimulating creativity and awareness within the broader Cambridge community.
The Cambridge Arts Council is supported in part by the City of Cambridge, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
