Community Connecter: Now + There's Marguerite Wynter on the Significance of Building Bridges, Her Time at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the Role of Public Art in the City
Portrait by Steven Karl Metzer
By Pat Dimond
Marguerite Wynter is a curator and arts administrator whose work focuses on the intersection of community and public engagement. She currently serves as Director of Partnerships & Engagement at Now + There, directing collaborative and community based programs with local and international organizations. She previously served as the Manager of Public Programs and Partnerships at the Chicago Architecture Biennial and has held curatorial roles in performance and public practice at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and 80WSE Gallery. In her interview with Pat Dimond, Marguerite talks about the different influences informing her work, and bringing a sense of calm to her projects. She advises those just starting their careers to put themselves out there.
PD: What were your foundational years like? What did you like to do as a kid?
MW: I grew up on Cape Cod with a single mother who worked as a social worker. And so, every year, for school vacation, she would sign me up for art classes at the Cape Cod Museum of Art. From a young age, anytime we traveled, we would go to museums or engage with anything related to art or design.
I was also raised in between many cultures. My father is from the West Indies, and my mom and I would always be visiting the Caribbean. I grew up between two cultures and have spent most of my life existing between worlds, giving me a unique lens of understanding the world.
You attended Northeastern and pursued a graduate degree in arts administration from NYU. Tell me about that.
I studied visual arts administration at NYU, which coincided with when I began working as a curatorial assistant at a gallery that was part of NYU called the 80WSE. It opened my eyes because I felt like there wasn't much of an art scene in Boston. I was studying communication and art history as an undergraduate student at Northeastern, and it felt like I could only go to the Museum of Fine Arts or the Institute of Contemporary Art if I wanted to see art. I didn't realize there were so many other arts organizations in Boston, but I didn’t know that at the time. So, I got to New York, and the art was so accessible, and my mind was utterly blown.
All these galleries were at my fingertips in Chelsea and the Lower East Side. All the museums were just around the corner, and I had an NYU ID that granted me free access. [laugh]. I fully took advantage of all the art that the city had to offer, and I also just enjoyed being in New York.
I had always wanted to live there, which in hindsight, ties back to my interest in the built environment. I’m curious about the way that people live and interact with each other and the urban fabric when they live in such a big city — this is fascinating to me.
Overton Community Day, Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2019. Photo by Cory Dewald.
Overton Activation, Zorka Wollny, Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2019. Photo by On the Real Film.
You left the East Coast and came to the Chicago Architecture Biennial, followed by a stint at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I'm interested in your time there and then the move over to the Chicago Architectural Biennial.
I started at the Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2018 and was hired as the assistant curator to work for the third edition called …and Other Such Stories. When that contract ended, I planned to go back to New York. I didn’t know much about architecture at the time, and New York was a safe place. Still, when I started at the Biennial, I worked in community engagement and curatorial programming and met dozens of incredibly talented artists.
My job at CAB had a lot to do with programming, and I enjoyed it and realized I wanted to make Chicago home. By this point, I was hired as the curatorial assistant at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in their Department of Performance and Public Practice. I worked alongside then-curator January Arnall, who ran that department and helped organize the talks accompanying each exhibition.
By the time my contract ended with the MCA, it was late 2020, and I took a little bit of time, went home to Cape Cod, spent some time with my mom and my grandmother, and then the Biennale called again, and they said to me, you know, we would love to bring you back as our manager of public programs and partnerships.
Which meant that I would be working in tandem with partners around the city. The biennial typically partners with over a hundred different art institutions, community groups, and architecture groups in the city. When the curator focus comes out for an edition, if an institution has programming that aligns with it, we would likely partner with them. Sometimes such a focus will be on programs; other times, it could be an exhibition site or a cross-marketing exchange. So, I was managing those relationships and engagement sessions.
That year the edition was The Available City, led by David Brown. The project centered around his long-term research thinking about a community-led design approach. Chicago has over 10,000 city-owned vacant lots, and in 2021, we had 12 sites on the south and west side. It was a collaborative project between artists, designers, and local community groups. During that time, I was planning outdoor programming and virtual talk series. That exhibition gave me a better understanding of Chicago.
I spent time in neighborhoods I hadn’t spent time in. I learned from community organizations embedded in the art and design fields. My eyes were opened again, but in a completely different way to what architecture and design can look like within a city.
“When people think of me, I want them to think I brought a sense of calmness or welcoming energy to whatever project I touched.”
How did you pair designers with those people?
As the artistic director, that was all David Brown. I would consider my role more of that as an analyst who researches the projects and then determines what types of engagement we could put on to amplify David’s vision.
Has there been a catalytic moment in your career? How have you perceived or navigated a perceived setback?
The move to Chicago to work for the Biennial has been hugely impactful, and to work alongside Yesomi Umolu, Sepake Angima, and Paulo Tavares. The Biennial changed things for me. I was exposed to a new city and subsequently became more integrated into the arts, where I had the chance to work alongside internationally renowned artists.
When you work on an exhibition, you might be working with one artist, but there were 80 contributors to the exhibitions that I was working on. So, as one of two assistant curators, I worked on half of those. A biennial is unbelievable, and I don't think people realize how much work goes into it for such a large-scale exhibition. And you're like, well, you have two years in between. I'm like, yeah, but by the time you start, it's like ten months [laugh]. It goes by so quickly [laugh].
What was it like to come from the East Coast to Chicago? Were you surprised? Did you love it? Are you so glad to get back?
When I first moved, I didn’t like it, and my mindset was that the job was a contract position, and I would be headed back to New York. After a while, I began to experience the city, and then the pandemic hit, and I was like, Ugh. Oh my God.
When I came out of that experience, I fell in love with Chicago. I love the art scene here; I love that there are experimental spaces. For example, people have galleries in their apartments, and you often can find that galleries are artist owned and operated. I’ve seen risks being taken here that I didn’t see in New York, which gives me hope.
When the opportunity to work at Now + There in Boston came up, it was something I couldn't pass up. So, I am sad to be leaving the city and the relationships I've made in the past five years, but I'm looking forward to seeing how this new job turns out.
Lot Lab Opening Celebration, Now + There, 2023. Photo by Annielly Camargo.
You're stepping into a director role; what does that look like? Tell me about what you’ll be doing at Now + There.
Now + There is a public art curator in Boston who curate temporary site-specific works. Much of the work is by Boston artists, and they bring in some international, national artists as well. Now and There will host a public art triennial in 2025, which is exciting for Boston. I'm the director of partnerships and engagement, so I’ll work with art institutions and community organizations in the city to partner on programming. It’s exciting to see Boston embrace public art. I was there last week and attended several different openings and talks and met with sorts of people.
My perspective on Boston has changed too. I have not lived there in eight years, and for a long time, I thought it was just the MFA and the ICA, but there is so much more. Organizations are working in all 23 neighborhoods of Boston working alongside artists and community organizations. It has a vibrant art scene, which further excites me about working with communities and using public art to bring vibrancy to different neighborhoods. The first step in a role like this is asking questions. How does public art answer some of the community’s needs?
What is on your mind most?
My move [laugh]. I got an apartment today, which is exciting. But yeah, this move to Boston is consuming my life. And also, how I will spend the next two months in Chicago before I leave. I'm getting all my bucket list stuff together, and one of those includes lots of lake days. I love walking on the lake and exploring the different neighborhoods.
“Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. At the beginning of my career, I attended as many openings and programs as possible to meet people in the industry. By putting myself out there, I expanded my view of things happening in the architecture and art world.”
What are you most excited about?
Creating similar connections that I’ve been able to make in Chicago. I have so many different networks, whether it's artists or architects or art administrators or musicians – I’ve gotten to know people from across the board. I’m looking forward to building upon that in a new city, and I know that the relationships and everything I've built here will last.
Which artists are you admiring the most right now?
Off the top of my head there is Edra Soto, who is a Puerto Rican visual artist based in Chicago. She was just in the Whitney, where she had an exhibit called, Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria. It was a retrospective of Hurricane Maria – a category 4 hurricane that blasted Puerto Rico in 2027. Her project explores how artists have made art in the wake of this natural disaster by bringing 50+ artworks together from the past five years.
In Boston, I saw a show at the ICA in 2021, and it featured Marlon Forrester, who captured beautiful iconographic images of young Black boys that were memorialized through basketball. Harry Gould Harvey IV and his wife, Brittany Ann Harvey, started the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art (FRMoCA) in Fall River, Massachusetts, which used to be a big whaling city. The city is on the Taunton River, and it has a large Portuguese population. There are a lot of old textile mills, it’s an exciting place, and I’m excited to see this renaissance of the arts happen in smaller cities.
Black JoyRide, Architecture of Reparations Bike Tour, Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2022. Photo by Marguerite Wynter.
What is the impact you would like to have on the world?
My God, that's a tough question. When people think of me, I want them to think I brought a sense of calmness or welcoming energy to whatever project I touched. With the work I do around programming and working with different personalities, there are a lot of moving parts, and there needs to be someone calm and steady but then welcoming so you feel like there's care for the work you’ve done. I always try to do that when I approach my work, so I would hope people would think that I give off that effect.
What direction do you have for those beginning their careers? And would your advice be any different for women?
Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. At the beginning of my career, I attended as many openings and programs as possible to meet people in the industry. By putting myself out there, I expanded my view of things happening in the architecture and art world.
My advice for women in this industry is to be assertive. Women have every right to be in the room as men, and our voices should be heard. I come from a strong line of women, being raised by a single mother and a grandmother who was the daughter of an Armenian genocide survivor, and they both instilled in me at an early age to always communicate my thoughts and opinions.
Being able to speak up and assert myself is a process that I'm still working on, but I continue to help guide me in my career.