risd | public engagement

You are invited to attend:
risd Project Open Door Student Exhibition
Opening Reception and Celebration
Thursday, January 14th from 4:30 – 7:00 PM
@ Brown-RISD Hillel
Brown University. 80 Brown Street, Providence RI 02903

Project Open Door aims to alleviate some of the financial and educational obstacles teens from low-income families face when they seek advanced arts learning opportunities that will prepare them for college and careers in art and design. Teens with a passion for art and design attend programs at their schools and come to RISD to experience campus life. Approximately 150 teens from Providence and around Rhode Island participate in programs each school year and summer.

These discussions, lectures and screenings focus on how education – whether in formal learning settings or through public interventions — can be a force for social change.

TONIGHT:

·       Sam Seidel, RISD Public Engagement Community Fellow and founding director of Broad Street Studio, 11 January, 7PM in the Tap Room: Over the last decade, Sam’s work has focused on the intersections between education, arts and incarceration.  Certified as a high school Language Arts teacher, Sam has taught a variety of ages and subjects from first grade reading to post-secondary screenplay writing.  He directed AS220 Broad Street Studio, a grassroots arts program for young people in and transitioning out of prison and was the founding director of the Maysles Institute youth documentary film program.

Public Art and Community Development

Tuesday, Nov. 10 6:30-7:30 PM | J. Walter Wilson Room 310 . Join us at this Community Hour for New Harvest Coffee and conversation about finding nonprofit jobs! Panelists include Rick Benjamin, faculty member at RISD and Brown and community activist, Emmy Bright, Artist Mentor Fellow at New Urban Arts, and Pete Hocking, Director RISD Office of Public Engagement. Co-sponsored by the Creative Arts Council and RISD’s Office of Public Engagement. Check the CCG website for information on Community Hour topics.

Soup Seminar:: a micro-investment grant Small investments make big change Fridays in November, 6:30 – 8:00pm in the Carr Haus Cafe

November 6th: NOAH ANACLETO of PAINT IT PINK

“Booking and hostessing the gayest shows you’ll ever know…” Aiming to create, facilitate, and/or foster a self-identifying queer ‘scene’ in providence. Focusing not solely on sexual orientation, gender expression, etc., but also a community-based environment where rigid labels or identifications, either self-applied or otherwise, are irrelevant

$3 Dinner + Dynamic Speaker = Grant Opportunities! Proceeds from dinner are put into a fund for participants to allocate to projects that connect RISD with other communities. Come to 3 seminars over the year and you will be eligible to join us on the selection committee.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a fund-raiser for Bradley Hospital, in which Melinda Bridgman’s course, Art as a Source of Healing, was recognized.  It was held at the Botanical Center in Roger Williams Park (pictured left).

I’ve had the opportunity to observe this course for a few years now, and I’m repeatedly struck by how transformational it is in the lives of students. My own theory is that the nature of the learning covenant between RISD /Brown students and the students at Bradley Hospital enable participants to see something fundamental about the way that human beings make meaning and communicate meaning. Like Freud said, it’s often in the breach of what we think is “the everyday” way of being that we see the true structures of our being.

This celebratory moment is also serendipidous in kicking off our year of programming focused on art and healing.  Through the generousity of the CVS Caremark Chartitable Foundation, the Office of Public Engagement will be supporting several new initiatives this year, including two student jobs focused on art and health, an upper-level section of Melinda’s course, new community service opportunities in the field of art and health, and a small conference of practitioners this spring.

Be in touch with us if you’re interested in participating in these programs!

Pete Hocking

RISD|Public Engagement thinks summer is the perfect time to dream up some fabulous new 10x10x10in artwork for a great organization.

Sophia Academy is a nonprofit middle school for girls with a mission to create a holistic learning community in the Greater Providence area for girls from low income families and, in an atmosphere of nonviolence, to focus on the academic, spiritual, cultural, and social growth of girls and their families.

Sophia Academy seeks artists for their winter fundraiser, “Small Works for a Big Cause” that is scheduled for January 17, 2010. The school is asking 100 artists to each donate a piece that fits into a 10x10x10-inch box.

If you are interested in supporting an amazing resource for girls and would like to donate a piece of your work,  email the event chairperson, Lynn McCarthy, at rooster0608@verizon.net.

Each September, New Urban Arts selects 20 artist mentors to participate in its interdisciplinary art studio on Westminster Street in providence. Artist Mentors volunteer to work with high school students in developing creative practices they can sustain throughout their lives. Working at New Urban Arts has proven to be an excellent way for artists to develop their capacity as educators in community settings.  New Urban Arts is also able to support students with Federal Work Study grants complete their work requirement as an Artist Mentor.  For an Application to become an artist mentor, contact New Urban Arts at 751-4556 or pick up an application at the Office of Public Engagement, enter for Integrative Technology (CIT) second floor.

This summer, I’m working with New Urban Arts as a “scholar in residence” for their Summer Inquiry Program.  Here’s a  posting I made to the New Urban Arts blog about the program’s visit to the Providence Athenaeum.

- Pete Hocking

Federico Santi, *Peace Now*, 1969, Digital print from scanned negative, 11 X 14 in.

An announcement for an upcoming photography exhibition recently reached our offices. VISTA Redux features the black and white work of Rhode Island artist Federico Santi from back in his days as an VISTA volunteer back in 1969.

As a modern day AmeriCorps VISTA (AmeriCorps didn’t merge with the VISTA program until the early 1990s) on the close of her service with RISD | Public Engagement, this exhibit made me reflect on the relationships and personal learning that have been a huge part of my year of service. The nature of the work may be substantially different, but the spirit of open-eyed idealism persists.

I also think about some of the creative projects that I’ve taken on in these past 12 months – Caves of Comfort, The Broad Street Beats band, the Templot Space Garden/El Jardin Espacial Solar, and the Anhoek School – and can’t help imagining myself 40 years from now, looking back on these projects as fundamental to my development as a creative practioner and citizen.

………..

NEWPORT, RI: Youth, idealism, poverty and hope – all are evident in Federico Santi’s photographs documenting his time in South Florida with Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) forty years ago. “VISTA Redux: Photographs, 1969, by Federico Santi,” opening at the Newport Art Museum in Newport, Rhode Island on August 29, recalls the volunteers, migrant laborers and their families, and at the same time captures a feeling for the late 1960s’ idealism and youth culture. “VISTA Redux” runs through October, 25, 2009. The Museum will host a preview reception for its late summer shows on Friday, August 28 from 5 – 7 pm. The reception is free for Newport Art Museum members; 10 for non-members. RSVP (401) 848-8200 x 104.

“VISTA Redux” features about three dozen large format images and many more shown in smaller proof format.  Santi used two cameras for his projects: a Leica M3 and a Hasselblad. He shot in black and white, explaining, “I really saw everything in black and white at that time in my life.” Asked whether he intended a double entendre, Santi pauses and says, “It’s an artistic statement but I can see that it could be a comment on youthful idealism. (Santi was 23 years old in 1969.)

Founded as Volunteers in Service to America in 1965 and incorporated into the AmeriCorps network of programs in 1993, AmeriCorps VISTA is a national service program designed specifically to fight poverty. Santi describes his fellow VISTA volunteers as “free-thinkers. It was the late 1960s and it was all about free love, rock music, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. I’m sure many of them thought of themselves as revolutionaries of a sort.”

Santi paints a vivid picture of himself at that time. “My standard attire was an air force jumpsuit. I had long blonde hair and gold-rimmed glasses. I wore black army boots with purple stars glued all over them. I looked like a freak!”

Images of the volunteers, the people they served and the notorious migrant labor camps in South Florida populate the gallery walls in “VISTA Redux.” A projected slide show of images runs continuously during the show and Santi has added a soundtrack of pop music from the 1960s.

Despite their poverty and appalling living conditions, many of the migrant workers in Santi’s images turn smiling faces towards the camera. The children especially, seem imbued with optimism or at least, unconcern about their circumstances. There is hope here and that strikes a familiar chord today.

———-

About Federico Santi: Federico Santi has lived in Newport for 25 years and co-owns with his life partner, John Gacher, “The Drawing Room Antiques” on Spring Street. He studied photography at Florida State University and his work has been featured in photo technique books and numerous regional trade publications. Santi co-authored or contributed to several books including Art Nouveau Ironwork of Austria Hungary, Zsolnay Ceramics: Collecting a Culture, and Newport Mansions: Postcards of the Gilded Age.