Boston Public Library To Host Marathon Memorial Exhibit

What will make #BostonBetter?

That's the question a group of local cultural institutions has banded together to try and answer as the city approaches the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing.

#BostonBetter, a partnership of 19 local museums and libraries, will host a series of events through  March and April, including an exhibit titled "Dear Boston: Messages from the Marathon Memorial" at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square.

The exhibit, which opens April 7, will feature a number of objects that were left at the makeshift memorial that sprung up along Boylston Street in the days after the bombing.

Curator Rainey Tisdale told The Boston Globe the exhibit, which runs through May 11, will be split into three categories: initial reactions, reflections on the attack, and hopeful messages.

“We didn’t want people to come in and see all of these things and feel this emotion and then leave,” she told the Globe. “We wanted them to feel like they could move forward.”

Other tributes include an installation at the Museum of Fine Arts of 1,700 hand-sewn flags created by quilters from across the world, a photography exhibit documenting tattoo tributes to the bombing, and a series of pop-up events where the public can share their stories related to the Boston Marathon bombing.