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Art should be integral to research, education, and expressing lived experiences. Podcasts, animations, spoken word, video games, and multimodal, born-digital books can be modalities of learning and teaching that decolonize representations, especially when they are founded on deep collaboration. Coming out of IRIE Center (Innovative Research and Intercultural Education), a group of scholars, artists, entrepreneurs, K-12 schools, and community leaders, collectively called The Collaboratory, facilitates research that is timely, evocative, and critical to understanding a fuller history of the Americas. The Collaboratory’s goals are to push the boundaries of grant-funded research, public humanities, and arts-integrated education.

The ARTery is a proposed cultural corridor spanning historic neighborhood squares and commercial areas in the heart of Black Boston. Running from Jazz Square in the South End through Nubian Square down Dudley Street and along Blue Hill Avenue to Grove Hall, the planned 3-mile route connects clusters of small businesses, numerous vacant lots, and underutilized public spaces with arts and culture initiatives across Boston’s City Council District 7. The initiative aims to hire local artists, activists, and entrepreneurs to reface and beautify small businesses, paint public murals, activate green, open spaces, and improve street safety in ways that express the cultural identities of local communities on city streets. This article presents a case of interdisciplinary research and creative inquiry collaboratively undertaken by community and university partners to develop the vision and concept plan for the ARTery and gain institutional funding and implementation support from the City of Boston. After providing the background and context, we present the participatory planning and design research for the ARTery, corresponding pedagogical approach and teaching methods, initial results, and concluding reflections. Notwithstanding the project’s early stage, it carries implications for aligning university-based teaching and research with municipal governance and repurposing academic and government machinery to advance arts-based and artist-inclusive spatial planning and investments in racialized, low-income neighborhoods.