Julie Burros—“Boston’s first Chief of Arts and Culture in more than 20 years,” according to the Mayor Marty Walsh administration—will be leaving the position on June 29 to become “principal cultural planner” at the Easton, Pennsylvania, cultural planning firm Metris Arts Consulting, the city government announced.
“With the launch of many new programs completed and the implementation of the Boston Creates Cultural Plan well underway, it’s a fitting time for me to transition to my next chapter and undertake new creative challenges,” Burros said in a press release. “It has been an honor to serve in Mayor Walsh’s cabinet and to play a leading role in the dramatic expansion of municipal arts support championed by Mayor Walsh. Later this summer I will be joining Metris Arts Consulting to spearhead a national cultural planning practice.”
Burros had been director of cultural planning for the city of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events for more than 15 years when she began work here in late 2014 in fulfillment of Walsh’s pledge during his first mayoral run to foster the arts in Boston. The newly created position aimed to raise the clout of culture in city government by making the department’s leader one of the mayor’s 11 cabinet-level advisers for the first time in some two decades.
Burros oversaw the development and ongoing implementation of Boston Creates, the city cultural plan that debuted in June 2016; worked on the development of the city’s Percent for Art program, which devotes funding to public art for new capital projects; and helped develop the city’s Boston AIR artist-in-residence program.
As the city looks to fill the job, Kara Elliott-Ortega, Director of Planning and Policy at the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, will serve as interim Chief of Arts and Culture.
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