Hidden Histories (2025)

Curated and produced by Emerson Contemporary, the exhibition will present a series of four public art projects featuring Elisa Hamilton, Clareese Hill, Sue Murad, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed. Combining the gallery’s mission to educate by doing, the inclusive experience of walking tours, and the idea that history is a living subject that constantly evolves, the artists received this prompt: find an aspect of the city’s past that is not currently well-known or understood and create art using new media technologies to amplify those stories.

Emerson Contemporary collaborated with Boston’s foremost historic archives: The Boston Athenaeum, Historic New England, and Massachusetts Historical Society, and the artists were subsequently invited as community research fellows. With the generous support and collaboration of the archives’ staff, artists were provided access to their rich collections and many objects that served as inspiration for their thought-provoking projects.

To support public access to Hidden Histories, the gallery has continued to build on their multi-year collaboration and partnership with Hoverlay, a Boston-based augmented reality platform where users can compose and publish immersive content. Hoverlay enables any storyteller to utilize AR to transform how they tell their stories by placing virtual story objects out in the world to be accessed by visitors’ smartphones.