ArtUp Lowell is a community based placemaking initiative that funds, enhances, and leverages the artistic, creative and cultural assets of Lowell through permanent, place-based mural installations that enhance public spaces throughout the city.

Since the summer of 2021, ArtUp Lowell has collaborated with the City of Lowell, local youth, community-based organizations, artists, and the Massachusetts based placemaking agency, Beyond Walls, to bring 20 permanent large-scale murals to 4 neighborhoods across the city that celebrate cultural diversity. 

ArtUp was originally created in 2015 by the Lowell Community Health Center as an innovative program to support local artists who wanted to share & sell their work throughout the community. 

In 2019, ArtUp expanded into the city-wide initiative, ArtUp Lowell, and was officially launched through the Jack's Flags installation at Kerouac Park. The exhibit engaged 12 art teachers across 8 Lowell schools. Over 800 students in grades 3 through 8 created their own fabric designs, which were inspired by Tibetan prayer flags.

If you’re interested in coordinating an ArtUp Lowell mural tour for your students, email Autumn Kleiner at Project LEARN, akleiner@projectlearninc.org.

Student art engagement is linked to increased school engagement and higher achievement, increased empathy and social-emotional intelligence, and civic engagement. Our young people will benefit from the opportunity to engage with professional artists who bring visibility to Lowell’s underrepresented cultural and ethnic communities and through paid, hands-on work that builds practical and problem-solving skills and community connections and helps establish them as working artists.

ArtUp Lowell seeks to increase awareness of Lowell’s cultural vitality, create new ways for our community members to experience underutilized public spaces, and spur increased foot traffic and local spending at restaurants and small businesses near project sites.