Boston’s Public Art Triennial fused spectacle, history and collective imagination at a free, immersive live arts event at Faneuil Hall Oct. 4. “The New Red Order Presents: The Urge 2 Merge” was a six-hour participatory experience, blending live theatre and film with music and historical reflection.
This year’s Triennial, which began May 22 and is titled “The Exchange,” brings arts and performance directly to public spaces. The Triennial “is an every three years exhibition and survey of what’s happening in contemporary art,” said Marguerite Wynter, the organization’s director of partnerships and engagement.
The evening was curated by New Red Order, or NRO, a collaborative collective and public secret society known for subversive critiques of settler colonialism through art.
“We promote and investigate the desire for indigeneity in order to rechannel that desire towards Indigenous futures,” said core contributor Adam Khalil. Through its pilot program, NRO redirects society’s often-extractive fixation with indigeneity into a constructive force for Native communities.
“It does a lot to us, to expect us to carry that work as Indigenous peoples,” said performer and activist Jean-Luc Pierite. “‘The Urge 2 Merge’ could be assimilation in some ways, merging with the nation-state. I hope people walk away thinking about, ‘How can we actually share in the labor of building a future together so that we’re not doing so much to our bodies?’”
The performance transformed a vacant building that was formerly Urban Outfitters. Steeped in light and layered sound, the exhibit’s main floor opened into two main rooms. One room glowed with floor-to-ceiling screens and a scattered cluster of chairs beneath vibrant posters reading “Sick & Tired of Living on Stolen Land? Give Back Your Dream Home” and “Create Indigenous Futures Today!” The adjoining room hosted live music performances interspersed with lectures and film, encouraging movement as attendees and performers drifted between spaces and experiences together.
“It’s a fun way to spend the night,” said arts educator and attendee Maggie Bauer. “I really enjoy the sort of cheeky angles presented tonight on what being Native is and these histories of the East Coast we don’t really hear about.” Performers changed costumes while videos employed fantastical imagery to convey the lived histories and harsh truths of historical legacy throughout the symposium.
The event location choice of Faneuil Hall was deliberate.
“Here in Boston, we have such intricate layered histories. I mean, just look at where this exhibition is happening,” Wynter said. Peter Faneuil, the hall’s namesake, directly earned his wealth through the transatlantic trade and the profits of enslaved labor. Though celebrated among tourists and widely beloved as “The Cradle of Liberty,” Faneuil Hall remains as a physical reminder of Boston’s colonial wealth and foundation in exploitation.
“There’s this sort of settler promise, but it’s not at all the world we live in,” said event speaker and Tufts University professor Mary Amanda McNeil. “A lot of these installations encourage us to grapple with what could have been, where we are now.”
The event is inspired by a sculpture made by the Triennial steps away from the hall’s main entrance: “Material Monument to Thomas Morton (Playing Indian) (2025).” The figure is a satirical caricature of infamous colonist Thomas Morton, known as the “Lord of Misrule,” who is playfully perched atop crates of British tea in the style of a Tlingit shame pole. Morton founded the fleeting Merrymount colony in what is now Quincy, Mass.
Nearby, a complementary piece will be installed across the Morton monument, honoring American abolitionist Solomon Northup. “We want people to come out and talk about Black and Indigenous resistance through having these statues in conversation,” Pierite said. The traveling statue will be unveiled Oct. 20.
Contextualizing contemporary art within Boston’s history is central to this year’s Triennial.
“It’s so important to bring in the perspectives untold by history, especially through engaging with public arts and voices,” Wynter said. “Our mission is really to create a more open, vibrant and equitable Boston through public art.”
By situating the present and future of the arts in dialogue with the city’s past, the immersion moves beyond its site, platforming social commentary and cultivating public reflection on justice.
The Triennial continues to host free events and will show its works city-wide until Oct. 24.
This story was updated at 3:15 p.m. Oct.27 to reflect that the Triennial will not be unveiling the statue honoring American abolitionist Solomon Northup, but another organization will be.
