FLOW To Bring Sound Studio, Murals, Magical Clouds Of Steam To Cambridge’s Port Neighborhood

Steam that vents out from the laundry room of an apartment building will be transformed into magical clouds lit-up with color. A mural painted right on the roadway of Windsor Street will celebrate the Port. Hip-hop and modern dancers will perform on outdoor basketball courts. A free sound-production / podcast and life skills training studio will be launched for young adults.

These are just a few of the 11 cultural projects coming to Cambridge’s Port neighborhood (previously known as Area Four) as part of Cambridge Arts’ FLOW programming. Funded with $300,000 through the City’s trailblazing percent-for-art ordinance, FLOW is tied to a major City infrastructure construction project to reduce flooding in this neighborhood between Central and Kendall squares. Cambridge Arts has been working closely with the Community Arts Center and other neighborhood organizations to develop this one-time grant program. A committee composed of community members selected 11 projects out of a total of 70 submissions.

The program title FLOW  is meant to evoke the flood-control project as well as the flow of time, the term for being in a positive psychological state (“in the zone”), and the area’s historical connection with the Charles River, whose tides reached into the neighborhood until construction of the Charles River Dam a century ago.

Additional FLOW cultural projects include a mosaic, a wall mural, and an artistic community garden. FLOW programs will teach performance poetry and dance. They’ll help launch a neighborhood steel pan band and a playback theater troupe. FLOW will also support a project to affix life-size animal footprints to playgrounds to invite children to run and leap like animals to begin to learn math concepts like measurement and pattern recognition.

Learn more about the individual projects here. Details of projects are subject to change as they develop. (Download high resolution photos for publication here.) Implementation of all projects will be contingent on review by City staff and the Public Art Commission and dialogue with the community.