Photo by Tarik Bartel
crystal bi (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist working in the public realm. Her participatory art projects explore themes of imagination, creative archiving, and belonging. Her practice includes creating space for dreaming in public, weaving with natural materials, installing interactive sculptures, and sewing translucent fabrics to float on bodies of water.
As a public artist, professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Practicing Methodologies Lead with Design Studio for Social Intervention, and former art educator at Boston Public Schools, crystal works with others to imagine and design new rituals for remembering and envisioning in public space.
crystal has received grants for her public art projects through the Public Art for Spatial Justice and Creative City cohorts at New England Foundation for the Arts, Transformative Public Art Program through the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, Live Arts Boston through The Boston Foundation, Parks Equity + Spatial Justice cohort through Olmsted Now, and more. She is currently in the Triennial Public Art Accelerator Cohort and is a 2025 Luminary at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and a 2025 WBUR Maker.
crystal is currently fulfilling a dream to build a Department of Public Imagination, which creates infrastructure for horizontal dream work in Boston. She is also currently building an installation to float on the ocean, which will launch in the summer of 2026.
Find out more at www.crystal-bi.com and www.departmentofpublicimagination.com