Exhibitions
Upcoming Exhibitions
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Jul2Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord: Artists Respond (2021-2023) is an artist residency inviting two Rhode Island-based artists, Jazzmen Lee-Johnson and Deborah Spears Moorehead, to create site-specific artworks that respond to the Center for Public Humanities’ historic wallpaper, Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord.
Jazzmen Lee-Johnson’s residency culminates in Not Never More, a series of prints installed in the Center for Public Humanities from April 28 – September 30, 2022.
Artist’s Statement: We inhabit our histories. We feel the pains of the past, we clang in its echoes, feel its residue caked up on our skin. History’s traumas have been perpetually erected in monuments, embedded in street names, stone walled in woodlands, hung, stacked, and plastered in architecture. Not Never More is my gut reaction and visual response to confronting such an architecture—the problematic 19th century French wallpaper Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord (The Views of North America), created in 1834 by Jean-Julien Deltil. This wallpaper adorns the foyer and staircase of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage which is situated in the historic Nightingale-Brown House. Deltil’s wallpaper obfuscates colonialism, genocide, capitalism, and slavery, in its romanticized idyllic nostalgic imagery. My response, Not Never More, is a textile print/quilt installation that remixes, conceals, reveals, and warps this historically fraught and imperialist imagery into layers of possibility, braggadocio, pessimism, blunt historical moments of shame/ contradiction, dance, and critical optimism.
Deborah Spears Moorehead’s artwork will be installed at the Center for Public Humanities in October 2022.
Gallery Hours:
May and September: Monday – Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
June – August by appointment. To schedule: call 401-863-1177 or email [email protected].
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 28, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Open for Gallery Night Providence: Thursdays, May 19, June 16, and July 21 from 5-8 p.m.
Closing Reception: Thursday, September 15, 5-8 p.m.
Past Exhibitions
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Sep26Map It Out – Providence (September 26 – November 14) is an exhibition of hand-drawn maps created by Providence and Rhode Island community members in collaboration with the Toronto-based artists Gwen MacGregor and Sandra Rechico. The maps reveal our community’s memories, and propose new ways of understanding the geography of our city and state. Exhibition attendees are welcome to add their own maps to the exhibition.
Map It Out has previously been exhibited in Berlin and Long Island City. Maps from these two cities as well as those created in Cardiff, Wales will be exhibited along with the maps made in Rhode Island. This project is part of an ongoing collaborative art practice that uses creative processes to challenge mapping conventions. The exhibition and all associated programs are free and open to the public.
Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Closed holidaysOpening Reception
Thursday, September 26, 5 – 7 p.m.Providence Gallery Night Reception
Thursday, October 17, 5 – 9 p.m.Gallery Talks
Friday, October 18, 2 - 3 p.m.
Thursday, November 14, 2 – 3 p.m.This project has been made possible, in part, by the Brown Arts Initiative.
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Oct6Defiant Spirits is an exhibition of the Mexican documentary photographer Fernando Brito’s moving images of life in Sinaloa, a province that has been wrecked by the struggle between one of the most powerful drug cartels in the world and the Mexican government. The exhibition includes five photographs from Brito’s award-winning series, Tus Pasos Se Perdieron con el Paisaje/Your Steps Were Lost in the Landscape (begun in 2010), of corpses found dead in the Mexican landscape, most of them victims of the drug wars. In them, Brito juxtaposes the brutality of the bloodied, lifeless bodies with the impossible beauty of the surrounding landscape, lending these photographs the epic feel of 19th-century paintings of war. Twenty photographs in the exhibition are from Brito’s more recent series, which shows Sinaloans’ resilience in the face of this violence. These images show Sinaloans’ religious rites, festivals, and other celebrations of local history, underscoring the centrality of performance in building community.
Defiant Spirits was curated by Didier Aubert, Director of American Studies at Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, and was shown previously at Fordham University and at Yale University in 2019.
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm (closed on weekends and holidays)
Closing Reception: Wednesday, November 3, 5:30-7pm.
This exhibition is co-sponsored by a grant from the Brown Arts Initiative.
Masks are required inside the Gallery at all times (regardless of the vaccination status).
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Nov89:00am - 9:00pmExhibition: Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice
URI Feinstein Providence Campus, 80 Washington Street, Providence,The Center for Public Humanities at Brown University, the URI Providence Campus, and the Tomaquag Museum present Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice, an International Traveling Exhibition and Story Exchange Project Exploring the History and Future of Climate and Environmental Justice.
Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice is a participatory public memory project sponsored by the Humanities Action Lab and created by university students, educators, and community leaders in more than twenty cities across the United States and around the world.
Brown University students partnered with a Rutgers University-Newark-led coalition of 500 university students, scholars, and frontline communities from 22 cities to create the traveling exhibition, which launched in Newark, NJ, on October 3, 2019. Providence has joined these communities from across the hemisphere to explore the deep historical roots of climate inequality and environmental injustice in their localities, share personal experiences, and develop strategies for change. Through virtual reality, moving audio testimony, and historical imagery from each community, the exhibition explores how the climate crisis and environmental injustice is intensifying inequality—and how the experiences of the hardest-hit communities hold the key to confronting these issues and finding ways to move forward.
Brown University’s contribution to the exhibition includes a section titled, “Amplifying Narragansett Voices on Land and Survivance.” Created through a partnership with the Tomaquag Museum, this student-curated installation explores Indigenous survivance in the face of colonial ecological exploitation and violence and shares the story of the Narragansett Nation and its role within a larger struggle to address historical and ongoing injustices. “Amplifying Narragansett Voices” bears witness to Indigenous self-determination and healing, documenting how the Narragansett Nation continues to fight for access to land and resources, ensuring environmental health, and preserving lifeways.
Climates of Inequality includes a complementary exhibition curated by Miranda Worl (MA’22), titled, “Local & Indigenous Artists on Climates of Inequality.”
Climates of Inequality is a project of the Humanities Action Lab, a collaboration between Brown University and 21 others, led by Rutgers University-Newark, working with community organizations and public spaces to foster new public dialogue on contested social issues, through public humanities projects that explore the diverse local histories and current realities of shared global concerns. Partner communities are: Amherst, MA; Bogota, Colombia; Chicago, IL; Durham, NC; Greensboro, NC; Indianapolis, IN; Mayaguez, PR; Mexico City, Mexico; Miami, FL; Milwaukee, WI; New Brunswick, NJ; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY; Newark, NJ; Northridge, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Providence, RI; Riverside, CA; Saratoga Springs, NY; Tempe, AZ; Twin Cities, MN; Nassau, The Bahamas.
This project was made possible in part by Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Rutgers University-Newark School of Arts and Sciences, the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, and the Tomaquag Museum.
Special thanks to URI Providence for hosting this exhibition at their campus.
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Feb23An art show using multi-media processes to encounter family archival gaps and memory loss created by forced exile during the Holocaust. This work encounters the complex nature of intergenerational grief of language and ancestral homeland. Curated by Andy Goodman.
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 10am-4pm.
This exhibition is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Feb23This workshop offers a comfortable and laid-back space, with mood light and music, for participants to engage freely with the capaciousness of the erotic, through poetry and photography, and using Audre Lorde’s writing as a starting point. The session will include a guided reading of Lorde, poetry prompts and freewriting, and the opportunity to take photos of the erotic self (which does *not* have to be an image of yourself). Photographs taken during the workshop will be printed on the spot and returned to participants so that they can write on, mark up, collage, or otherwise augment the images however they choose. We will provide various crafting materials, props, and supplies. The aim of this workshop is to provide a playful and open-ended setting for participants to reflect on the empowering potentials of erotics.
Participants’ creations will be displayed, with consent, in a subsequent exhibition that will be on display for two weeks in the Garage Gallery where this workshop will take place. After the exhibition concludes, we will work to facilitate the return of exhibition pieces to their creators. -
Feb2410:00am - 4:00pmPublic Humanities Lab / Erotic Vision: Poetics of Body and Image
Nightingale-Brown HouseWe will explore Audre Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power in an intimate poetry and photography workshop where our collective creations will become the exhibition. Curators: Larissa Nez, Kate Hao, Rai Terry, and Sophia Ellis.
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 10am-4pm.
This exhibition is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Mar1A weekly series of listening sessions where participants will come to the session with one sonic recording that relates to that week’s theme. As a group, we will listen to the selected sounds and discuss. Registration is required and curator will communicate with registrants regarding the weekly theme. Curator: Ariel Lynch
Register for Session 1: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/263045445007
This series is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Mar8
A weekly series of listening sessions where participants will come to the session with one sonic recording that relates to that week’s theme. As a group, we will listen to the selected sounds and discuss. Registration is required and curator will communicate with registrants regarding the weekly theme. Curator: Ariel Lynch
Register for Session 2: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/263126908667
This series is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Mar1010:00am - 4:00pmPublic Humanities Lab / Coffee: A Journey Through the Senses
Nightingale-Brown HouseCoffee Tasting Event: Coffee isn’t just a warm drink. It’s heritage, culture, and a living tradition you hold in your hands. Join us for an exhibit on coffee’s journey from bean to cup and a demonstration of its preparation. Curators: Hilary Bergen and Susana Turbay Botero.
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 10am-4pm.
Coffee Tasting Event: March 17, 5-8pm.
This exhibition is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
The Gallery is open Monday - Friday, 10am-4pm.
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Mar1110:00am - 4:00pmPublic Humanities Lab / Memoria: Care Work and Memory in the Free Burial Ground
Nightingale-Brown HouseProvidence’s North Burial Ground holds so much history: we can walk through the neatly winding pathways, reading the headstones and remembering those gone before. But waaaayyy in the back lies another section, a place where many more lie buried without a name. This project seeks to honor the residents of Potter’s Field and Free Ground through art, research and collective action. Curators: Traci Picard and Bridget Hall.
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 10am - 4pm.
Opening Reception will take place on Friday, March 11, 6-8:30pm and will feature speakers Matt Garza from Haus of Glitter, Rev. Janet Cooper-Nelson, Chaplain of Brown University, and Donnell Williamson from Brown’s Religion and Critical Thought Department.
Open for Gallery Night Providence: March 17, 5-8pm.
This exhibition is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Mar15Come learn the basics of how to run an oral history interview! Participants will have the opportunity to take their own oral histories after training and exchange ideas on incorporating oral history into future projects. Curators: Alyssa Trejo and Elizabeth Mathews, with Dr. Lauren Yapp. Register here if you plan to attend.
This series is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Mar15
A weekly series of listening sessions where participants will come to the session with one sonic recording that relates to that week’s theme. As a group, we will listen to the selected sounds and discuss. Registration is required and curator will communicate with registrants regarding the weekly theme. Curator: Ariel Lynch
Register for Session 3: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/263131261687
This series is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Mar16
Come learn the basics of how to run an oral history interview! Participants will have the opportunity to take their own oral histories after training and exchange ideas on incorporating oral history into future projects. Curators: Alyssa Trejo and Elizabeth Mathews, with Dr. Lauren Yapp. Register here if you plan to attend.
This series is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Mar22
A weekly series of listening sessions where participants will come to the session with one sonic recording that relates to that week’s theme. As a group, we will listen to the selected sounds and discuss. Registration is required and curator will communicate with registrants regarding the weekly theme. Curator: Ariel Lynch
Register for Session 4: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/263131863487
This series is a part of the Public Humanities Lab at the Center for Public Humanities, where Public Humanities graduate students curate exhibitions and public programs that probe questions about art, memory, heritage, culture and sensation.
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Apr28
Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord: Artists Respond (2021-2023) is an artist residency inviting two Rhode Island-based artists, Jazzmen Lee-Johnson and Deborah Spears Moorehead, to create site-specific artworks that respond to the Center for Public Humanities’ historic wallpaper, Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord.
Jazzmen Lee-Johnson’s residency culminates in Not Never More, a series of prints installed in the Center for Public Humanities from April 28 – September 30, 2022.
Artist’s Statement: We inhabit our histories. We feel the pains of the past, we clang in its echoes, feel its residue caked up on our skin. History’s traumas have been perpetually erected in monuments, embedded in street names, stone walled in woodlands, hung, stacked, and plastered in architecture. Not Never More is my gut reaction and visual response to confronting such an architecture—the problematic 19th century French wallpaper Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord (The Views of North America), created in 1834 by Jean-Julien Deltil. This wallpaper adorns the foyer and staircase of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage which is situated in the historic Nightingale-Brown House. Deltil’s wallpaper obfuscates colonialism, genocide, capitalism, and slavery, in its romanticized idyllic nostalgic imagery. My response, Not Never More, is a textile print/quilt installation that remixes, conceals, reveals, and warps this historically fraught and imperialist imagery into layers of possibility, braggadocio, pessimism, blunt historical moments of shame/ contradiction, dance, and critical optimism.
Deborah Spears Moorehead’s artwork will be installed at the Center for Public Humanities in October 2022.
Gallery Hours:
May and September: Monday – Friday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
June – August by appointment. To schedule: call 401-863-1177 or email [email protected].
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 28, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Open for Gallery Night Providence: Thursdays, May 19, June 16, and July 21 from 5-8 p.m.
Closing Reception: Thursday, September 15, 5-8 p.m.
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Apr286:30pm - 8:30pm
Opening Reception for “Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord: Artists Respond”
Nightingale-Brown HousePlease join us for a celebration of Jazzmen Lee-Johnson’s Not Never More (2022), a site-specific art installation on the ground floor of the Center for Public Humanities. Read more about the exhibition here.
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
