In Boston, a tale of two arts districts

The SoWa Open Market is a happening place on Sundays. In a parking lot on Harrison Avenue, rows of white tents take the place of cars. People browse the stalls with their dogs and children, sampling wares from local businesses: jewelry, hot sauce, veggie burgers. A DJ spins disco from a tent by the beer booth. Past the beer and down a cobblestone path, a sign welcomes visitors into the broad brick building where artists keep their studios.

But the community is more fraught for some."It feels lonely,” says LaiSun Keane, owner of LaiSun Keane Gallery. SoWa's artists and gallerists are predominantly white, and Keane, who is Chinese Malaysian, feels her difference acutely. Her gallery focuses on art by women and people of color, a project she says people sometimes find alienating.

Even Keane counts herself among the privileged. The gallery does not earn her a living wage, and she depends on her husband's income for financial stability. “I’m not doing this for money,” she explains. “I'm doing this because I felt that I have a point of view. I have something to say. And I want to also provide a platform for people like me who have something to say.”

“What we discovered is that community members wanted to take blighted lots and transform them,” says Kai Grant, a member of the Roxbury Cultural District board of directors and co-owner of the Nubian Square event space Black Market.For Grant, the development of empty lots could remedy a problem that long plagued the neighborhood where she grew up. “I'm tired of having to go to Copley or the Seaport or Cambridge or JP in order to get a glass of wine and see a show,” Grant says.

Grant wants the hall to be a nexus for Black culture in Boston, a place that local organizations and artists can call home.

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