While most of the city was sweltering throughout this weekend, flocking from one air-conditioned building to the next, many Bostonians took a break from the late summer heat to enjoy the Boston Arts Festival. Cleverly subtitled ?Shts, a play on the distinctly Bostonian intonation of the word "arts," the festival acknowledged and elaborated upon many of the regionalisms unique to Boston. Spanning Saturday and Sunday, the festival filled up Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park with joyful families and friends, young and old alike, all eager to experience the art-performances, visual and interactive pieces-that the city has to give.

This weekend program sponsored by the city of Boston was indeed (as the festival program promised) a "celebration of the visual and performing arts," but it also captured an experiential aspect of art. As I approached the waterfront from the Faneuil Hall shopping district, I could tell that I was entering a space that was made to stand out from the rest of the city. The art projects and presentations that were on display in the booths of artisan vendors were nestled between sizable interactive art pieces and outdoor installations, and as I approached the water, I saw festival goers flock together on the green in front of a large outdoor stage setup.

Out of 54 visual and craft artist vendors, 15 musical performances, five temporary public art installations, eight interactive art programs and a firework show presented over the weekend, I must say that my favorite part of the festival was the tactile art-larger pieces that could be touched, played with and even changed by the viewer-the innovative installations, especially.

As I approached the docks, I passed an idyllic, conceptual installation piece: Michele Auer's "String Theory." The piece was composed of a spider web system of cables, suspended more than 10 feet above the ground between three wooden, tree trunk-like supports, from which hung a cloud-like cluster of yellow string. The densely-packed strings varied in length so that in the middle of the piece, they hung down lowest to the ground and hung increasingly and uniformly higher toward the outside of the piece.

"String Theory" stood out from the greenery of the park, and its canary yellow string wisps blew through the wind, tugged by the hands of toddlers, children and babies carried by their parents. Auer's piece embodied the beauty of interactive art: the more a viewer can relate to and experience a piece, the more dynamic the piece's meaning becomes. And it doesn't have to be an intellectually charged, introspective interaction. Rather, sometimes the most lasting impressions made by art are the simplest-ask any of those kids what their favorite part of the day was, and I'll bet that even after seeing all the performers, sculptures, crafts and murals, they would still say, "pulling on the yellow strings."

Continuing my walk through the park, I neared the stage-a bare-bones metal construction that would remind Brandeisians of our school's annual Springfest concert-and moved into a crowd largely composed of adults. Indie music duo Dwight & Nicole, fronted by recording artists Dwight Ritcher and Nicole Nelson, were onstage, transitioning from one set to the next. As I moved into earshot, Nelson started speaking fondly of Boston, where she moved into her first apartment alone as a young adult. "So about your room... there aren't any windows," she repeated the words of her first landlord to the crowd. "But now the view's pretty good. It's awesome to be back in Boston," she said sweetly. The two then started into a passionate, plucky song that reflected their blues influence, and the crowd mellowed into a state of contentment. Against a background of the setting sun and lapping water, the experience was enchanting.

The most tactile and fun part of the festival, for me, was probably the last piece that I saw as I was leaving. At the edge of the park, two fence-like structures were set up on the last few feet of green. The plywood "fences" were covered with drying paint-splattered, smeared, stroked, stippled and dabbed. This visitor-created piece, the least-planned-out and most informal of the whole shebang, so simply communicated the festival's message: art is something that can be created and experienced by everyone, that is accessible to everyone. Watching the festival goers gain such genuine enjoyment and excitement from each work of art was one of the most worthwhile ways to spend a day.
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