Prov Preservation Society Announces "Sites & Stories Explored" Art Project

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Prov Preservation Society Announces "Sites & Stories Explored" Art Project

Knight Memorial Library PHOTO: Providence Community Library
The Providence Preservation Society (PPS) will unveil five new artistic works in 2019 that are inspired by their 2018 Most Endangered Properties list.

PPS selected five artists and artist teams to create new works related to five of the sites on the list as part of the project titled “Sites and Stories Explored.”

“The works will provoke conversations about the meaning of place, what happens when a site tells more than one story, and what kind of reparative work can ensue when a site erases some of its narratives in favor of others,” writes PPS in their press release.

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Walking tours with the artists are being scheduled for September and October. The Preservation Society’s website will be updated with that information after Labor Day.

Sites and Stories Explored

Rebecca Noon and Jed Hancock-Brainerd will research the female workers who held jobs at the Earnscliffe Woolen Mill/Paragon Worsted Co. located at 25 & 39 Manton Avenue. Noon and Hancock-Brainerd will create a song and performance based on and dedicated to these “unsung” women. Community members will be engaged to perform as a chorus in or near the Paragon Mill buildings.

Megan and Murray McMillan will create an immersive cinematic experience at the Earnscliffe Woolen Mill/Paragon Worsted Co. featuring choreography for performers based on the history of the site and the adjacent Woonasquatucket River.

Deborah Spears Moorehead will first perform research on the Colonial, Industrial, and Contemporary uses of Providence waterways. Her work will result in a mural that addresses several aspects of water usage, including how bodies of water can sustain differing cultures. Her research and production will involve both the State House Lawn and Parcel 1A, two landscapes that relate directly to the Woonasquatucket, Mosshasuck and Providence’s Rivers.

David Wells will create a video that will engage the current residents of the area to share their voices about the Broad Street neighborhood along with those who worshiped at the now vacant Broad Street Synagogue. The intersection of these two communities is core to his project. The video will consist of two kinds of visual storytelling creating informative accounts of place, thereby expanding the collective understanding of those who breathed life into these spaces.

Walker Mettling will create a handmade hardcover artist book focusing on Knight Memorial Library. He will start with documentation and research of the now inactive reference storage stacks, the horse-drenched reliefs banding the main room, and the stained glass symbols set into the windows of the smaller quiet rooms. His work will be influenced by how the library and the neighborhood have interacted in the past and how they do today


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