A video interview series with some of Providence’s artists and cultural practitioners, an opportunity to learn and to project healthier creative ecosystems.
This video series is a resource for mapping out existing opportunities and areas of improvement across our cultural sector, as articulated by artists and cultural practitioners themselves. If you’d like to discuss bringing facilitated sessions to your cultural organization, or organize a gathering to expand on this type of work with your peers, please reach out through the contact form.
SEASON 2
With support from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) a second season expands the map of the creative ecosystems in Providence RI.
In the month of March, 2025 with support from the Community Libraries of Providence, we’ll be hosting a series of gatherings to look at these testimonies and organize resources to strengthen relationships in the sector. Check out the library website for more details.
SEASON 1
In honor of October 2021 Arts and Humanities month, Nan Joubá (presenting as Hernán Darío) and the Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism released a series of videos that highlight seasoned cultural workers –taking a closer look at how their legacy weaves Providence’s creative fabric. Bridging past, present and future, each segment connects to distinct themes and goals outlined in the PVDx2031: A Cultural Plan for Culture Shift.
We launched Time has Told Me for the 2021 Arts and Humanities Month by paying special attention to Bert Crenca and Lydia Perez. Over the years, both artists have built homes for their practices, and their homes became home for many other artists as well. Having spaces dedicated to art-making, where people can turn their inner landscapes out, is akin to the idea of a sanctuary (“a place of refuge or safety” according to the New Oxford American Dictionary). The connections fostered and nurtured inside these spaces have led both guests of “Time Has Told Me” to the creation of PRIAA and AS220. If you know either of these organizations, you might understand why “place-keeping” has its own vision within the AC+T Cultural Plan for @City of Providence 2031. In these conversations Bert and Lydia reflect on what “community” means to them, and other important insights.
Bridging people with access to opportunities to lead sustainable, nurturing lives begins with palpable support: actual space to materialize visions and experiment directions, as well as avenues for expanding growing communities are both at the core of these two interviews. Susan Clausen speaks to the deep importance of considering the housing landscape in Providence — to look at this from her experience and lens as former AS220 property’s manager provides rich insight to take our sight forward. Julie Yang speaks of a different type of home building: ensuring living cultures today can have pathways for envisioning their futures on their own terms. This type of work is necessarily cross-departmental — it needs many arms and many views to take into account the many different needs of artists living in providence today, and to act accordingly.
Both Karen Allen Baxter and Elmo Terry-Morgan have dedicated many of their efforts towards sharing resources and honing spaces for collective growth. In sharing time with both of them, I felt a deep generosity running through all of their responses; thoughtful and honest engagements that i received as gifts. We knew each other very little before sitting down together, but both Karen and Elmo cherished our gatherings with precious trust.
Devising ways of sharing artistic work and passing down the questions we ask of ourselves and others today are critical endeavors for giving continuity to our cultures in the long term. I am convinced the type of education most important to exercise is the one that extends participation for crafting ways forward and yields opportunities for seeing the world from different sides with compassion and commitment. This was palpable in my time together with both Karen and Elmo. After both interviews I felt changed. I hope you do too.
Francis Parra from ECAS Theater speaks to the importance of language representation in serving people with cultural events that reflect their identities. Her lifelong work and her words in this interview offer a vision into how diversity is a key component to think “creative economies”. On another hand, Sylvia Ann Soares’ approach to art making is a clear example of the connection between creative practice and the wellbeing of individuals and communities.
Meanwhile, Rose Weaver and Ramona Bass Kolobe stress the importance of a creative economy and the community’s well-being. Rose gives a strong testimony about how artists’ compensation has changed through time, and the shortcomings on this regard to build sustainable lives with a long term vision. Her hard work outlines challenges and victories still relevant to this day.
Ramona embodies an ever-active creative practice that offers opportunities to connect and heal through every-day interactions. She made this palpable throughout the interview in a way that’s impossible to divorce from her person –her words and actions are embedded with deep grace.
I want to take this moment to thank every person who agreed to share their time for this very special series. It has been an honor to sit down –or move– in conversation with each one of them. I also want to thank Stephanie P. Fortunato and Gina Rodriguez-Drix from the Department of Art, Culture and Tourism for acting upon the relevance of this type of work. I believe these videos are invaluable resources for our local communities to learn from ourselves, and look forward with ever more wisdom.
Nan Joubá 