The Great Marsh Starts Here! A Living Landscape in Motion
The Great Marsh Starts Here! A Living Landscape in Motion brings together artists from the Great Marsh Artists Fellowship for an exhibition celebrating three years of artistic exploration, collaboration, and engagement with one of New England’s most significant coastal landscapes.
The exhibition features work by artists who have participated in the Great Marsh Artists Fellowship, a program created to support artists in developing new projects inspired by the Great Marsh, its natural and man-made history and significance, as well as its beauty and immediate fragility. Over the past three years, 22 artists have been selected as Great Marsh Artist Fellows and have dedicated themselves to creating 24 projects that connect art, ecology, history, science, and community. Some have been completed and presented to the community, others are still underway.
The exhibition marks an important milestone in a partnership that began with The Great Marsh Concert in 2023, a collaboration between Manship Artists Residency and Artists for the Great Marsh. The concert brought artists and members of the Great Marsh community together around a shared interest in the landscape and its future. That initial collaboration led to the formation of the Great Marsh Artists Fellowship, which provides $2,000 grants to artists to develop projects that premiere at organizations and institutions connected to the Great Marsh.
The fellowship has grown into a network of artists and organizational partners extending across the Great Marsh region. Over the past three years, fellows have developed and presented projects with organizations including The Great Marsh Artists Fellowship and this exhibition are funded in part by the Kathleen Van Demark Fund for the Great Marsh.
Rather than asking artists simply to interpret the marsh, the fellowship invites them to spend time with the places, people, histories, species, and questions that make up this extraordinary landscape. The resulting projects have taken many forms, demonstrating the range of ways artists can engage with a living ecosystem.
The Great Marsh Starts Here! reflects both the geography and the philosophy of the exhibition. The Great Marsh begins here, but it also extends outward—through waterways, wildlife, communities, working landscapes, and the many people who care for and experience it. The exhibition offers a chance to see the Great Marsh through the eyes of artists who have spent time observing, listening, researching, imagining, and creating in relationship to the landscape.
Artists and Works
The exhibition brings together work by 18 of the 22 Great Marsh Artists Fellows including Resa Blatman, Gail Boyajian, Marcia Ciro, Robert J. Bradshaw, Michele Brody, Anne Eder, Karen Futral, Isaac Grenader, Robert Honstein, Jenn Houle, Amy Kaczur, Andrea LeBlanc, Susan Quateman, Katie Pustizzi, Norah Solorzano, Erika Sutter, and Alex Young.
The work presented moves across artistic disciplines and mediums—from painting, photography, and sculpture to video, book art, music, animation, and dance—revealing the many ways a living landscape can be seen, experienced, interpreted, and expressed.
About the Great Marsh Artists Fellowship
The Great Marsh Artists Fellowship was established following the 2023 Great Marsh Concert, a collaboration between Manship Artists Residency and Artists for the Great Marsh. The fellowship provides $2,000 grants to artists to create projects inspired by the Great Marsh and to develop those projects in partnership with organizations throughout the region.
The program recognizes artists as important observers, interpreters, storytellers, and participants in the life of a landscape. By placing artists in conversation with environmental organizations, historic sites, conservation groups, scientists, educators, and local communities, the fellowship creates opportunities for new forms of public engagement with the Great Marsh.
Since its creation, the fellowship has supported 22 artists and 24 projects, with projects ranging across visual art, music, film, dance, performance, writing, interdisciplinary practice, and community engagement.
The Great Marsh Starts Here! A Living Landscape in Motion continues that work by bringing the artists together in one place and inviting audiences to experience the Great Marsh not as a single subject, but as a complex and interconnected living landscape.
Exhibition Dates: November 6–22, 2026
Opening Reception: November 7, 4-6 pm
Gallery Hours: Friday–Sunday, 12–5 pm
Location: Cultural Center at Rocky Neck, 6 Wonson Street, Gloucester MA
Some of the artwork will be for sale.
Admission: Donations gratefully accepted to the FREE exhibition. Recommended donations requested for certain programs to pay the performers. Register to attend on exhibition page of Manship website: HERE.
For more information, visit Manship Artists Residency at ManshipArtists.org or contact Rebecca Reynolds, rreynolds@ManshipArtists.org, 978-290-8438.