Boston First Night

Since 1975, Boston’s First Night has been a New Year’s Eve celebration of artistic performances, the wonders of the season and the beginning of a new year. 

In 1992 Marcos was commissioned by the First Night organization to design and build a Latin American Boat - Pavilion, one of a four boats installation called “Boats Coming Together”, representing the European, Asian, African and Latin America cultures.

Marco’s design was a large-scale rowing boat with 23 rows, representing the 23 nations in Latin America and the Caribbean. As part of Marco’s design, people could enter the boat and interact with sound and visual effects creating a sense of traveling in the waterways. A large-scale map of the 23 countries was displayed inside the boat.  

From: The Boston Sunday Globe . December 1991

By John Koch

“Why a rowing boat.”? he says. As he pored over maps of Latin America before embarking on the design, Carvajal said, he envisioned peoples linked by small waterways, rivers, channels, the Golf of Mexico, and not by oceans, “ The oars give each culture its own identity: the four colors on the hull, drawn from the flags are their common ground.”

“First Night is great, It’s giving me the opportunity to share my Cuban culture with other people of many cultures,” said Marcos Carvajal, who was a designer of the boat representing the Latin American culture.

Artist's Statement

"My interests in the fine arts began in Cuba when I was a child. Initially, it was my father who influenced me in the development of artistic abilities, as well as in the visualization of reality and its spiritual dimension. Due to the knowledge acquired from him, I learned to make connections between self, material and spiritual realms.

"My commitment to the field of art was the driving force in the study of art history, education, and production using different media and technologies in the visual arts. In time, I discovered a large space with expanded dimensions for the expression of my visual and spiritual languages in an integrated manner - a language that expresses a state of harmony using colors, forms and textures".