The Seaport Art Walk, New Bedford’s annual outdoor public art exhibition, is now accepting artist proposals for its 2026 edition. Artists are invited to submit new or existing outdoor temporary sculptures, murals, or photography of artworks inspired by the theme “Good Trouble.”
Gilda Geist What is the Seaport Art Walk?
Zane Cox Seaport Art Walk is an annual outdoor art exhibition that happens every summer here in New Bedford. It's the very first large-scale outdoor exhibition in the city. This is a show that has been running for almost 13 years at this point. New Bedford Creative formally took over management of the show in 2019, and we've run it every year since then. We were even able to do it in 2020 with the pandemic.
GG So I wanted to talk about this year's theme, "Good Trouble." How did you folks land on that as the theme?
ZC Our theme last year was called "Revolution/Evolution," and that was kind of something that we sort of just came up with on the fly, but the point of "Revolution/Evolution" was to partially commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution in Massachusetts, and also to, less directly but still acknowledge of course, the shifting modern political landscape and kind of how different everything became last year, especially starting in January. So, "Revolution/Evolution" was a call to action in that sense. And I think people enjoyed that theme so much that it sort of carried over into what we planned to do for 2026. I think in many ways, "Revolution/Evolution" was sort of the seed of this idea, and "Good Trouble" is just building off of that initial idea from last year. If you're not familiar with what good trouble actually means, it's derived from a quote by Representative John Lewis. He said it on March 1 of 2020: "Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America." So, of course, that ties into the anniversary of the American Revolution itself nationwide, and we're challenging artists to get into a little bit of good trouble themselves. We're challenging them to address corruption and injustice and sort of dare to imagine a more equitable world.
GG What are the judges looking for when they review people's submissions?
ZC We've got a pretty diverse judging panel. They're going to be looking for several things. So first and foremost, the pieces that will be selected for this year are serving as expressions of solidarity and hope and standing as beacons of light in times of darkness. We're looking for works that'll be rooted in themes of activism and social progress. They may confront unjust systems of power. They might honor local freedom fighters that came before us—there's many of those to be found in the New Bedford area—or even tell stories from the front lines of the marches and movements of today.
GG I'm interested in the fact that this is the theme for this year because New Bedford has been the number one location in our region where we've seen ICE raids impact the community. Is that a topic you're expecting to see in this year's cohort of public art?
ZC Oh yeah, most definitely. So, most of the submissions that we received last year came during the early part of the year—typically our submission deadline is at the end of February—which was interesting because last year's deadline was pretty much right at the same time that the ICE raids were really ramping up in the city, so we weren't seeing it as much. But I think with the way everything's been progressing, it's kind of an unavoidable topic at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if we have one piece or several pieces that address that issue because it's something that people obviously feel strongly about and understandably so. It's interesting to see New Bedford specifically targeted, so yeah, I think it's absolutely something that'll come up. It'll be interesting to see all the ways in which it manifests through everybody's distinct visions of what they see and how they want to challenge it.
