What's On View

Select galleries are closed for installation. See what’s on view

Immerse yourself into the Boston arts scene! Spend the night exploring cutting edge exhibitions and a paint and sip activity overlooking the Seaport.

This is a free event with snacks and beverages available for all students.*

*Mocktails provided while supplies last. Additional drinks available for purchase.

Event Program

Mingle over Mocktails and Snacks | 6–8:30 PM
State Street Corporation Lobby, First Floor
Meet other Boston-area students and unwind from studying! Activities led by students from Emerson College. Enjoy complimentary snacks and nonalcoholic beverages throughout the night! Additional drinks and snacks available for purchase from the ICA Wine + Coffee Bar.

Meet ICA Professionals | 6:15–6:45 PM
State Street Corporation Lobby, First Floor
Exploring career options? Hear from ICA staff across departments during a panel discussion.

Visit the Exhibitions | 6:45–8:30 PM
Galleries, Fourth Floor
Explore our current exhibitions: To My Best Friend and Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now.

Sip and Paint | 6:45–8:30 PM
Bank of America Art Lab, First Floor
Take inspiration from artworks in To My Best Friend or your own imagination and creativity.

How do humans control the natural landscape, and what happens when we do?  

Join Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Ruth Erickson, who will lead a discussion at the ICA Watershed on the United States premieres of Hardpan, a large-scale kinetic sculpture co-commissioned with Barbican Centre, London, and Murderers Bar (2025) a new moving image installation and the third installment of Raven’s trilogy The Drumfire. 

About Ruth Erickson

Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Ruth Erickson has been a driving force in the ICA’s curatorial department since joining the museum in 2014. Among her many projects, she has organized major thematic group exhibitions, including the critically acclaimed To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood (2022), A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now (2022), and When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art (2019); a significant artist survey and publication Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist (2017); and solo presentations of María Berrío (2023), Barbara Kruger (2022), Vivian Suter (2019), Wangechi Mutu (2018), and Kevin Beasley (2018), among others. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the 2015 exhibition and publication Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–57 (for which she was co-editor and served as research fellow), Ruth Asawa: All is Possible (2021), Kevin Beasley (2018), Sue Williams (2015), and Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology (2014). Before joining the ICA, Erickson was a fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia (2008–10) and served as curator at Burlington City Arts (BCA) (2004–7). She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, and her B.A. from Carleton College, Northfield, MN. Erickson is the recipient of a prestigious Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship in 2021. 

Lucy Raven: Rounds is organized by Ruth Erickson, Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, with Meghan Clare Considine, Curatorial Assistant. 

Hardpan is co-commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and the Barbican, London.

The image displays the word barbican in bold, black, lowercase letters on a white background, reminiscent of signage seen at cultural spaces like the East Boston ICA and ICA Watershed.

This exhibition is supported by Natalie and Jake Lemle and the Jennifer Epstein Fund for Women Artists.

Join Teen Exhibitions Program to celebrate the opening of Sonder, an exhibition featuring the work of teens across ICA teen programs.

Sonder refers to the realization that everyone on Earth leads a different, yet equally complex and significant life. The exhibit, created by our Teen Exhibitions Program, explores and encourages this awareness through a diverse body of work by teen artists. Each work serves as a window into someone’s personal circumstances. Through this window, the viewer is given the opportunity to imagine and understand different walks of life.

This exhibition will be on view in the Teen Galleries at the ICA’s Seaport Studio through February 4, 2027.

The opening is free and open to all ages.

Event Schedule

6:00 PM 

  • Art Making
  • Snacks & Drinks 

6:45 PM 

  • Welcome by Teen Exhibitions Program 
  • Remarks by Artists 

7:45 PM

  • Closing Remarks

Questions or requests for accessibility assistance? Email teens@icaboston.org or text or call (339) 236-3039

Lead support for Teen Programs provided by Wagner Foundation.

The image displays the words Wagner Foundation in large, bold, black serif font on a light gray background.

Additional support is provided by the Rowland Foundation, Inc.; Cabot Family Charitable Trust; Dorot Foundation; Mathieu O. Gaulin; William E. Schrafft and Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust; American Tower Foundation; Nathaniel Saltonstall Arts Fund; Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; Robert Lehman Foundation; MFS Investment Management; BPS Arts Expansion Fund at EdVestors; Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation; Bessie Pappas Charitable Foundation, Inc.; and Tiny Tiger Foundation, Inc.

MFS logo

Converse seeks to fuel Creators of the future through movement, play, and connection.

Converse logo

Calling all teens! Teen Arts Council presents
The current us
The Current : Us
The current U.S.
a space for reflection connection and gratitude!

Happenings 

  • Open Mic
  • Snacks
  • Art Making
  • Community building through games
  • Get interviewed for a documentary by teens in our Fast Forward film program  

Questions or requests for accessibility assistance? Email teens@icaboston.org or text or call (339) 236-3039

Calling all high school students! Join teen photographers from Special Focus: Photography February Break Intensive for ICA Teens Picture Day. Work with a Special Focus photographer to make a creative portrait of yourself!

Each session will last 20 minutes. Signing up ahead of time is required. We will reach out to you to confirm your timeslot.

Questions? Email teens@icaboston.org or text or call 339-236-3039

Join us, BPL Community History, and the Boston Research Center for an opening reception in celebration of the new exhibition Still Here: A Journey of Public Art in Boston.  

Still Here: A Journey of Public Art in Boston features work of our 2024-2025 Photography Collective. By exploring Boston’s ever-changing landscape through a camera lens, members of the Photography Collective developed their photographic skills, learned about the history of different artworks in Boston, and connected with local artists to understand the important role photography can play in preserving history. Join us in reflecting on the Photography Collective’s experience and celebrating the teen photographers hard work.

Light refreshments will be provided. RSVP encouraged. Find out more and RSVP here. 

Join friends, supporters, artists, and community members for the opening celebration for two new exhibitions: Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now and To My Best Friend. Get a first look at Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now and celebrate the artists and community builders behind Boston’s African American Master Artists-in-Residence Program.

Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Mannion Family Curator, with Meghan Clare Considine, Curatorial Assistant.

Support for Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now is provided by The Coby Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Exhibition Fund, and The Kristen and Kent Lucken Fund for Photography.

The publication is supported by Wagner Foundation.

The Coby Foundation logo featuring a black cursive signature-style Coby on the left, separated by a vertical line from the words THE COBY FOUNDATION in uppercase serif font on the right.
Logo for the Terra Foundation for American Art, featuring the word terra in bold, lowercase letters, with Foundation for American Art to the right in a simple sans-serif font
The image displays the words Wagner Foundation in large, bold, black serif font on a light gray background.

Public Media Partner

Large, bold white GBH letters are overlaid on a solid purple background with curved edges

What can we learn from the current generation of great women artists?
Discover never-before-shown works from the ICA’s permanent collection and gain a deeper understanding of To My Best Friend with exhibition curator Erika Umali. 

About Erika Umali

Erika Umali is the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s first Curator of Collections. She leads strategy around collection development and practices and highlights the ICA’s collection through focused exhibitions and programming. She has contributed to several ICA exhibitions, including Portraits from the ICA Collection, Wordplay, and An Indigenous Present. Previously, she served as the inaugural Assistant Curator of Collections at the Brooklyn Museum where she supported collecting strategies, shepherded thousands of acquisitions, and co-curated Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks. Her work focuses on cross-cultural exchange, accessibility within cultural institutions, engaging local and source communities, and decolonizing practices. 

Umali received her B.A. in anthropology from Bridgewater State University, Massachusetts, with a focus on the art and material culture of Native North America, and an M.A. in museum studies from New York University. 

To My Best Friend is organized by Erika Umali, Curator of Collections

This exhibition is funded, in part, with support from Leadership in Arts Museums, an initiative to create more racial equity in art museum leadership, supported by the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Pilot House Philanthropy, and Alice L. Walton Foundation.

Discover highlights of the ICA’s collection during a tour of To My Best Friend. Guided by an ICA Graduate Student Lecturer, explore selected artworks through conversation and close looking that bring new perspectives to light.

FREE with museum admission or membership; no pre-registration required. Tour meets on 4th floor.

Are there access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program (e.g., assistive listening devices (ALDs), portable gallery stools)? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org.

To My Best Friend is organized by Erika Umali, Curator of Collections

This exhibition is funded, in part, with support from Leadership in Arts Museums, an initiative to create more racial equity in art museum leadership, supported by the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Pilot House Philanthropy, and Alice L. Walton Foundation.

Get inspired by Caroline Monnet’s Man-made Land! View the Art Wall installation and feel a sample of the materials Monnet uses at our art cart. Use colorful metallic paper, ribbon, decorative tape, and colored pencils to draw and collage a mobile that represents the connections in your life! Plus, warm up with a hot beverage at a pop-up hot chocolate bar with all the fixings!* 

Art-making is free and meets at the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall in the State Street Corporation Lobby. Participation is drop-in on a first-come, first-served basis as space allows. *Available for purchase.