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By Kevin Dacey, Editor-In-Chief for Boston Compass (#124)
June 4, 2020
As a foreword to this month's note from the crew, Boston Compass and Brain Arts Org would like you to know that we stand with the oppressed black people and POC in America and worldwide. No group of people should have to live in fear everyday of their lives and feel silenced because of the color of their skin. We believe one way to uplift oppressed and marginalized people is to give them a voice, a stage, a space, a column in a newspaper! We will continue to publish our newspaper during these dark days because we want to hear you Boston. Also, in order to best serve our community, Brain Arts Org will be changing and adapting our approaches as the current uprising moves forward. Check out @dorchesterartproject on IG for the most updated info and resources and read below to see what Boston Compass is up to and how you can have your voice heard:
Zup! Thanks for checking out another issue of the Compass. We know that during this tough time resources like this one are vital in keeping our community connected. Thank you all for the support! Because of you Brain Arts Org was able to raise 107% of its Covid-19 relief fund! We are now able to pay artists who lost gigs and BAO staff to keep this art culture train movin’ for a few months to get through this difficult time. Even before this crisis, we were always looking for ways to improve the quality of the work we’ve done, and now we are so stoked to present our newly re-imagined, mission-driven events section “Happenings”, which will replace what used to be known as “chosen shows” on pages 4 & 5. Instead of trying to confine all the incredible action of Boston into the limited categories of art, music and film, we have decided to widen our net and capture a more diverse variety of events under the umbrella Happenings! This means performance art, tutorials, podcasts, fundraisers, collectives... anything happening in the vast arts and culture scenes of Boston that are underrepresented. In this spirit of increased accessibility we are once again accepting submission for events! Send your listings to happenings@brain-arts.org. We wanna know about ‘em!
One more thing... we have been over the moon with our recent expansion to 8 pages. We adore each of our new writers’ and artists’ fresh perspectives and guess what... we want more! For July’s Compass and beyond we would love to bring even more new writers/artists to our team. Pitch us your column/art idea to kevin@brain-arts.org. In times like these we all need to be more accepting and inclusive, so we are opening our pages to you in order to create a more diverse cast of voices to represent our city. Don’t worry, your new fave column isn’t disappearing, just rotating with other great content. We’ve also been able to welcome writers to our new blog: www.brain-arts.org/blog. This endeavor is like an extension of the Compass with even more content about Boston happenings than we can fit on our 8 pages. We also upload Compass content there just in case you missed something. Wow! We’re dang busy... that’s because we love this City.