Current Exhibitions
Upcoming Events
At the Central Library
Interested in proposing an exhibition for the Central Library's Gallery J space? View our Exhibition guidelines.
In the Well: The Stories We Tell About Addiction
Central Library in Copley Square (Deferrari Hall & Gallery J)
May-October
Caledonia Curry a.k.a. Swoon (b.1977; based in Brooklyn, NY) is an artist, writer, and filmmaker who explores the depths of human complexity through the portrayal of individuals. Her current work questions the prevailing narratives surrounding addiction. She was inspired by Boston-based medical researchers Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk, whose work revolutionized the understanding of the inherent link between trauma and addiction.
In the Well: The Stories We Tell About Addiction is a multipart artwork composed of the sculpture Sibylant House located in Deferrari Hall, illustrations in Gallery J, and a series of divination card prints, Oracle Deck, that visitors can find wheatpasted throughout downtown Boston. The sculpture and prints are derived from the artist’s novella, Sibylant Sisters, a story about two sisters who live with a witch beholden to a noxious substance brewed in the well of toads. Through a charming story of girlhood imagination, Swoon challenges how drug addiction is perceived, explained, and often misunderstood. Workshops and public programs will further engage audiences to establish deeper levels of understanding and invite us to reconsider preconceptions surrounding addiction—ultimately highlighting the potential of art and the creative process to catalyze social change and interpersonal healing.
Terrains of Independence
Central Library in Copley Square (Leventhal Map & Education Center)
Thursday, April 3, 2025 - Saturday, March 28, 2026
In the Leventhal Map & Education Center’s exhibition Terrains of Independence, maps will offer an entry point to a reconsideration of the Revolutionary War through the lens of locality and place.
In 1775, a collision of word-historical forces, driven by ocean-spanning empires, conflicts over trade and settlement, and new ideas about society and government, came together in the spark of the American Revolution. Yet although both the causes and the consequences of the Revolution were grand in scale, the war ignited in the tinderbox of a very specific local geography: Boston and the surrounding towns of Massachusetts.
Why did it happen here?
The revolutionary moment was as much about places as it was about people or ideas. In and around Boston, the tensions of Britain’s colonial empire had been rising for decades before the 1770s. The commercial geography of the city and its region, zones of friction between classes and communities, and contestations over the environment all helped to create the conditions that led to an era of revolutionary upheaval in Massachusetts.
Becoming Boston: Eight Moments in the Geography of a Changing City
Central Library in Copley Square (Leventhal Map & Education Center)
Monday, March 31, 2025 - Monday, February 1, 2027
Maps trace out the complicated history of places, and we can use them to document geography in much the same way that we can use diaries and letters to document biography.
In the eight cases of this exhibition, we follow the changing spatial forms of the place we now call Boston—from before the landscape carried that name all the way through the struggles, clashes, and dreams that continue to reshape the city today.
These maps don’t merely depict facts about how the city looked at different moments in its history. Instead, they invite us to contemplate how geographic forces, both natural and human, have constructed the physical and social world around us, through large and small transformations that have transpired over many centuries.
The Leventhal Map & Education Center regularly mount exhibitions in our gallery, located in the historic McKim Building in the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. All of our exhibitions feature scholarly research as well as activities for families, children, and educators. Our permanent exhibit, Becoming Boston: Eight Moments in the Geography of a Changing City, is available anytime our public gallery is open.
Central Library in Copley Square (Special Collections Department)
Hands-On History showcases select projects from the Boston Public Library’s Conservation Lab. Books and art made from paper, parchment, leather, and wood deteriorate as they age, and BPL conservators employ a variety of techniques and materials to treat and repair collection objects so they can be used by researchers today and preserved for future generations. While conservation typically occurs behind the scenes, this display shares more about decisions that inform treatment plans, as well as the tools and materials used.
Teen Central Permanent Rotating Exhibit
Central Library in Copley Square (Teen Central)
This exhibition is in partnership with the Department of Youth Services (DYS) and the DYS Art Showcase program.
Since 2008, the BPL and DYS Metro Region staff have partnered to facilitate monthly library visits to DYS Metro.
This presentation of artwork represents a selection of the work from the annual DYS Art Showcase, which highlights and promotes the talents of young people from across Massachusetts. Each year, BPL Youth Services will select and purchase art from the Art Showcase for display in a permanent, rotating collection at Teen Central. The BPL is proud to support these artists and all at DYS.
For more information, please contact BPL Teen Outreach Librarian Maty Cropley at mcropley@bpl.org.
