Brown Arts Institute

Arts and Humanities

‘Wild Stories’ shows the power of ‘bombastic’ and brilliant narrative art

April 23, 2025

An exhibition in Brown’s Granoff Center for the Creative Arts celebrates the artwork of Professor of Visual Art Leslie Bostrom as she reflects on three decades of teaching and painting at Brown.

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Arts and Humanities

Free, student-led public art tours at Brown University to run from April to November

April 11, 2025

The Brown Arts Institute will host public art tours every Saturday and Sunday, inviting Brown and Providence community members to explore the University’s distinctive public art collection.

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Arts and Humanities

Residual Noise festival explores the creative power of sound

April 7, 2025

Hosted at Brown and RISD, the festival celebrated sound’s potential to transform art and society — and The Lindemann’s potential to push the limits of sound exploration for generations to come.

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News and Events

Brown University honors 50 years of women’s varsity athletics

April 7, 2025

Across a weekend of events celebrating the anniversary, hundreds of athletes and alumni got a first look at a student-led documentary chronicling women’s trailblazing role in Brown’s athletics programs.

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Arts and Humanities

French-Caribbean artist Julien Creuzet stages immersive, multi-sensory installation at Brown

February 19, 2025

In a site-specific reimagining of the artist’s Venice Biennale exhibition, the installation in Brown’s David Winton Bell Gallery focuses on water as a site of trauma and emancipation and incorporates Rhode Island-made sculptures.

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Arts and Humanities

With graffiti-inspired bubble clouds, whimsical new art installation illuminates Sayles Hall at Brown

February 11, 2025

New York-based interdisciplinary artist Sanford Biggers created a site-specific installation, “Unsui (Cloud Forest),” which features 10 cloud sculptures that hang from the rafters of Brown’s iconic 1881 Sayles Hall.

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University Initiatives

Philanthropy made it possible: Brown celebrates its most successful fundraising campaign to date

January 28, 2025

Launched publicly in 2015, BrownTogether transformed Brown through a decade of unprecedented support that advanced excellence in teaching and research, financial aid, community impact and more.

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News and Events

Grammy-winning artist Jon Batiste ignites Brown campus with music and creative expression

January 27, 2025

During an immersive, weekend-long visit to Brown, acclaimed musician Jon Batiste performed a concert, inspired students with a master class and hosted a screening of a documentary about his life.

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News and Events

In a wide-ranging conversation, Daveed Diggs freestyles about art, democracy and activism

January 23, 2025

The Tony and Grammy award-winning actor, writer, producer and Brown graduate joined Professor of Africana Studies Tricia Rose for a “Brown 2026” event exploring art, democracy and, of course, “Hamilton.”

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Arts and Humanities

Elijah Golden: Embracing storytelling from the Grand Ole Opry stage to Brown’s classrooms

December 17, 2024

Brown University senior Elijah Golden pursues a varied academic and extracurricular life at Brown while also performing and touring with his family’s three-generation country music band.

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Arts and Humanities

'Blue Moon': Student exhibition of cyanotypes featuring NASA lunar images lands at Brown

November 12, 2024

A collection of silk and cotton prints created by Brown University students and community members is on display at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts through Nov. 16.

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News and Events

Brown to host film screenings, climate discussion as part of city-wide Providence-Florence festival

November 6, 2024

“Sott’Acqua: A Tale of Two Cities Underwater,” explores the histories of Providence and Florence, Italy, as they rebuilt after floods, through workshops, screenings, tastings, exhibits and expert-led discussions on climate change.

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Arts and Humanities

Student-led public art installation in Providence offers a new perspective on visual impairment

November 1, 2024

Following research, development and community collaboration, a team of Brown and RISD students unveiled “The Blind Urban Subject,” where passersby can experience the streetscape through common ocular conditions.

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Arts and Humanities

21st Century Orchestra festival at Brown to celebrate new orchestral music and performance

October 23, 2024

An open-to-the-public festival, from Oct. 24 to 27, will highlight Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center as a premier site for orchestral music performance, experimentation and recording.

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With their artwork on display, Providence students shine at Brown’s Granoff Center

October 18, 2024

A creative collaboration between the Brown Arts Institute and Pleasant View Elementary School, “PantherArt” featured more than 400 young artists, offering a joyful highlight in Brown’s IGNITE series this fall.

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Arts and Humanities

Exhibition at Brown’s Bell Gallery celebrates the vibrant, textured artwork of Franklin Williams

October 17, 2024

On view through Dec. 8, the new survey exhibition, “Franklin Williams: It’s About Love,” showcases the deeply personal paintings and sculptures the artist has created over the last six decades.

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News and Events

Brown modern culture and media scholar Tony Cokes wins prestigious MacArthur ‘genius grant’

October 1, 2024

The longtime Brown University faculty member, who is celebrated for his video works that recontextualize historical and cultural moments, was awarded an $800,000 grant to advance his practice as an artist.

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Arts and Humanities

Artist Leo Villareal returns to Brown to reflect on his immersive campus light installation

September 28, 2024

The world-renowned artist and creator of “Infinite Composition” in Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center shared insights on his creative process at a late-September Light in Art and Architecture Symposium.

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Arts and Humanities

Tuning up: Brown’s cutting-edge Lindemann Performing Arts Center marks its first year

September 28, 2024

As the one-of-kind, high-tech Lindemann Performing Arts Center turns one, artists are just starting to embrace the building’s limitless possibilities.

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Student Life

Photos: With cyanotype, Brown student uses the sun to visualize the moon

September 24, 2024

Inspired by Chinese handscrolls and NASA film of the moon’s surface, senior Logan Tullai used an 1800s technique to lead a community art project on campus on 60-foot-long swaths of silk.

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Arts and Humanities

Photos: Community concert, program for local musicians cap off dynamic residency at Brown

July 16, 2024

The University’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center hosted the sold-out Global C.A.F.E., a free and open-to-the-public concert curated by Rhode Island hip-hop artist Chachi Carvalho.

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Arts and Humanities

Brown’s Bell Gallery awarded prestigious two-year Warhol Foundation grant

July 12, 2024

An award from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts will enable the University’s David Winton Bell Gallery to expand public programming for exhibitions in 2025 and 2026.

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News and Events

ArtsCrew program at Brown offers training, flexible jobs and career development for local artists

May 31, 2024

A workforce development program launched by the Brown Arts Institute is helping to create a pipeline of local arts professionals who build artistic, administrative and technical skills to power campus performances.

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Arts and Humanities

Photos: Professional musicians bring final projects by Brown student composers to life

May 7, 2024

Musicians from the New York Classical Players provided expert insights and performed Brown students’ original works as part of a Seminar in Composition course.

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Arts and Humanities

Student-led walking tours highlight Brown’s diverse collection of public art

May 2, 2024

Through free weekly outdoor tours, Brown students offer guided narration for a selection of works in the University’s expansive public art collection.

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Arts and Humanities

Photos: Open studio event showcases creativity of Brown University artists

April 26, 2024

Students and faculty in Brown’s Department of Visual Art opened their studios and classrooms to display and converse about their creative work at an open-to-the-public event.

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Student Life

To infinity and beyond, then back to Brown: Design challenge repurposes 1960s moon footage

March 7, 2024

Hosted by Brown’s Multimedia Labs, the Moon Design Challenge encouraged community members to transform vintage NASA materials into out-of-this world art projects.

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Arts and Humanities

Brown’s Bell Gallery celebrates groundbreaking performance artist Barbara T. Smith

March 6, 2024

An exhibition of Smith’s work and objects is the only East Coast presentation of a show organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

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Arts and Humanities

South African artist William Kentridge and collaborators share innovative artmaking approach at Brown

February 29, 2024

Through a dynamic, multi-part residency with the Brown Arts Institute through mid-June, Kentridge and artists from his Johannesburg-based arts incubator are engaging with the University community and beyond.

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Arts and Humanities

Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center debuts recital configuration

January 19, 2024

Acclaimed classical singer Julia Bullock was the first artist to grace The Lindemann stage in its recital configuration, one of five dramatically different arrangements available in its main hall.

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Arts and Humanities

Photos: The world turned upside down: Brown students experience room-scale camera obscura

December 13, 2023

Using a technique that preceded the photographic camera, Brown Arts Institute staff projected a live image of the outside world, including the University’s stunning new Lindemann Performing Arts Center, inside a darkened room.

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Arts and Humanities

With alumni gathered for Black Alumni Reunion, Brown dedicates transformed Churchill House

October 29, 2023

Alumni and community members celebrated the newly transformed home of Africana Studies and Rites and Reason Theatre as part of a weekend of lectures and events focused on the Black experience at Brown.

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Arts and Humanities

Celebrating the arts at Brown: Sights, sounds and stories from The Lindemann’s opening weekend

October 20, 2023

Packed with building tours, family activities, a ribbon-cutting and the center’s inaugural public performance, the weekend offered countless opportunities for community members to celebrate the arts at Brown.

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Arts and Humanities

Collaboration in concert: Brown composer and poet pen piece for The Lindemann’s opening

October 16, 2023

“Open again a turn of light,” written by Brown faculty members Eric Nathan and Sawako Nakayasu, will premiere on Saturday, Oct. 21, part of the inaugural public performance at The Lindemann Performing Arts Center.

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Arts and Humanities

Brown to kick off yearlong celebration of the arts with Oct. 21 public opening of The Lindemann

October 4, 2023

Student, faculty and community artists, violinist Itzhak Perlman and countless other creators will take part in a day of performances, discussion and tours to celebrate the opening of the unique performing arts center in Providence.

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Arts and Humanities

A piece composed in solitary confinement and never performed gets its world premiere at Brown

September 29, 2023

“Vampire Nation,” composed in prison in 2009 by Mumia Abu-Jamal and arranged by Brown Ph.D. student Marcus Grant, had its world premiere at a symposium focused on mass incarceration.

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Arts and Humanities

Brown honors skilled workers who brought the Lindemann Performing Arts Center to life

September 23, 2023

University leaders hosted a special celebration to recognize key project partners, skilled craft workers who dedicated hundreds of thousands of hours to the planning, design and construction of the state-of-the-art venue.

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Arts and Humanities

Brown to mark Lindemann Performing Arts Center opening with public celebration in October

August 2, 2023

Musician Jon Batiste, violinist Itzhak Perlman and countless creators from Brown will take part in a day of performances, discussion, tours and a parade to celebrate the unique performing arts center in Providence.

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Arts and Humanities

Dynamic light installation by Leo Villareal activates lobby in Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center

July 25, 2023

“Infinite Composition,” an engaging LED light sculpture designed by artist Leo Villareal, will illuminate the Nelson Atwater Lobby inside The Lindemann, which will open at Brown in Fall 2023.

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Arts and Humanities

In Script to Screen course at Brown, aspiring filmmakers pair up with regional actors

June 22, 2023

Taught by Laura Colella, a writer and director, the course gave eight undergraduates a rare opportunity to bring their own screenwriting to life in collaboration with professional actors.

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Arts and Humanities

Search-friendly database boosts access to more than 7,000 artworks at Brown’s Bell Gallery

June 7, 2023

Brown University’s contemporary art gallery launched a new web-based database where scholars, curators and the public can explore a dynamic collection of photographs, paintings and more.

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Arts and Humanities

IGNITE series to welcome world-class artists, showcase Brown’s diverse arts scholarship

May 3, 2023

Launching with the opening of the Lindemann Performing Arts Center in October 2023, the IGNITE series will include performances, exhibitions and events that demonstrate how art can be a powerful vehicle for change.

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Arts and Humanities

$25 million from Perelman Family Foundation to establish arts district at Brown

April 18, 2023

The Ronald O. Perelman Arts District will highlight the prominence of arts teaching, scholarship and performance at Brown.

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Arts and Humanities

Exhibition at Brown grapples with generations of sexism, power imbalances in cinema and culture

February 6, 2023

“The Listening Takes,” opening Feb. 9 at the Bell Gallery, exposes the film industry’s decades-long tendency to silence women who speak up about sexism and sexual assault on set.

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Arts and Humanities

Through workshops, grants and partnerships, Brown Arts Institute deepens ties with local artists

December 19, 2022

In recent years, BAI has cultivated close, long-term relationships with Providence-area creators through financial assistance, workshops and residencies — enriching the art scene and bolstering learning at Brown.

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Arts and Humanities

Iconic director, choreographer Bill T. Jones invites students, scholars and local community members onstage

November 9, 2022

Two dozen Brown community members and Providence-area residents recently had the rare chance to perform in “What Problem?,” directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, at the VETS Auditorium.

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Arts and Humanities

Bell Gallery exhibition sheds light on the criminal justice system’s impact

September 7, 2022

Called “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” the exhibition features paintings, sculptures and other works by prisoners, loved ones and advocates.

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News and Events

Bold, colorful new public art installations come to College Hill

July 26, 2022

In the last year, a diverse collection of sculptures, murals and mixed-media installations by internationally renowned artists Damien Hirst, Rebecca Warren and Sol LeWitt has come to Brown.

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Arts and Humanities

'Creatively driven': First artistic director details vision, priorities for Brown Arts Institute

July 15, 2022

Avery Willis Hoffman, artistic director of the Brown Arts Institute, shares how the fruitful intertwining of scholarship, research and practice will shape the future of the arts at Brown.

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Science and Technology

At Brown, innovative course explores ‘responsible robotics’

June 6, 2022

By merging themes in dance and computer science, the course Choreorobotics 0101 is teaching the next generation of engineers how to create technology that minimizes harm and makes a positive impact on society.

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