"A Thousand Ships" is a night of remembrance – an occasion to celebrate the bicentennial of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, but also a night to acknowledge and mark Rhode Island’s century-long involvement with this trade. Merchants from Rhode Island mounted more than a thousand slaveship voyages on these waters, carrying over 100,000 Africans into New World slavery. One of these ships was called the Providence, and more slaveship voyages sailed from Rhode Island’s harbors than from any other state. "A Thousand Ships" is a night for contemplation and recognition – a ritual observance acknowledging the state's historic involvement with human bondage. A night filled with music and silence, dance and stillness, fire, and water.
This event kicks off the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities' Freedom Festival, a month-long exploration of African-American heritage in Rhode Island. Lyra Monteiro, a student in the public humanities program was one of the event organizers.
September 27, 2008
Waterplace Basin and Memorial Park
Providence, RI
6:30 p.m. – 12:00 a.m.
September 28, 2008
John Nicholas Brown Center, Library
357 Benefit Street
12 – 3 p.m.
In the spring of 2008, students enrolled in AMCV1903G: Oral History and Community Memory, embarked on a project to document the history of Providence’s Fox Point neighborhood. Fox Point, an area that borders the Brown University campus, currently serves as a home to students and staff from the nearby universities, numerous restaurants and upscale shops, and India Point Park, now a destination for boaters, soccer players, walkers, and joggers. Before the 1960s, however, Fox Point’s residents – primarily first and second-generation immigrant families from Portugal and Cape Verde – labored on the waterfront, worked in industries, worshipped at the neighborhood’s churches – Holy Rosary, Sheldon Street, and St. Joseph’s – and managed the corner markets and ethnic bars that dotted the area. The rerouting of highway I-195, now under construction, promises even further transformations in Fox Point.
In order to understand the causes and the impact of these changes, students in the class, under the direction of Anne Valk, associate director for programs at the JNBC, set out to record life history interviews with current and former residents, business owners, and others with a stake in the area. The students collected approximately 35 interviews that will become available through Brown University’s digital library and, in their original form, at the John Hay Library. Using their interviews, along with photographs generously provided by Mr. Lou Costa, the class created a children’s book and audio documentaries, and a Web site, where further information will be made available, is under development.
The research and presentation of materials about Fox Point is ongoing and will continue with future classes.
In the fall of 2008 artists Kianga Ford, Carla Herrera-Prats, and Jill Slosburg-Ackerman will create work for Art+History, an exhibition influenced by the specific physical and historical parameters of the John Nicholas Brown Center and its garden. Rather than present a traditional historical or art exhibition, Art+History will offer a hybrid experience. How discreet are the historic and artistic practices? How flexible are our notions about the past? In short, Art+History will explore what happens when new hands rifle through, untangle, and re-fold the contents of our home. The exhibition will be curated by students in the master's in public humanities program, Meg Rotzel and Rosie Branson Gill. Although the exhibition will not open until spring of 2009, students in the public humanities program are currently working with the artists on their pieces and planning public programming.
BOYS AT THE EAST STREET RECREATION CENTER
35 interviews with current and former Fox Pointers will soon become available through Brown University’s digital library.
ART+HISTORY
Using the photos from the archives of John Nicholas Brown Center, artist Carla Herrera-Prats will try to understand how the Brown family has been “historicized” through photography.