Dear Friends,

As summer winds down, many of us city-dwellers are making plans to take advantage of the remaining time to schedule a day, a week, or even an hour “out in nature.” But in their exhibition We All Live Here Together, currently on view in the Joan T. Boghossian Gallery, artist/educator/wildlife rehabilitator Kotone Deguchi challenges our notion that “nature” and “culture” exist in opposition to one another. The exhibition – which was supported by a Curatorial Fellowship from Creature Conserve, a creative community combining art and science in order to cultivate new pathways for wildlife conservation – features artwork, writing, and performance, all created via public workshops and prompts that invited people of all ages and skill levels to re-examine the idea that nature is located somewhere “out there.” 

While installing the exhibition in early August, Kotone shared with us how they used three pre-exhibition workshops, offered at public libraries around Providence, to invite participation by community members. “I love projects with a lot of public interaction and collaboration, and my inspiration for this was the Rewilding project I worked on with PPL in 2021 [which included nine professional artists and over a hundred members of the public]. In the application for the Creature Conserve Fellowship I was asked to list two or three artists I wanted to work with – but I knew I wanted to open it to as many people as possible, of all ages, and at all levels of experience.” At these informal workshop gatherings, Kotone posed a series of questions designed to get people thinking and re-thinking. “What are the results if I Google images of ‘wildlife conservation’? The results are lots of AI-generated images of elephants and giraffes, over and over! Ok, where do these animals live? Very far away, in Africa. What if I search for ‘nature’? I get Google Maps highlighting Rhode Island state parks. Again, you have to ‘go out,’ drive 20 minutes, to ‘get to nature.’ But what if we look closer to home? Who lives in our neighborhood? What is some wildlife we just see out in the world? We can actually challenge the idea that these two things [nature and culture] are entirely separate. We can say, where we are, with everything we’ve built, which we call ‘culture,’ and where nature is, and where all of that is living its life as ‘nature,’ are more intermixed, more interdependent that we might think about – or not think about.”

They continued, “In the workshops, we asked very broad questions like, ‘What are ways that we can get involved in conservation in our lives?’ Then we offered very specific examples: ‘Go to a shopping mall, and near the parking lots there might be a retention pond. What’s up with that retention pond? Is the water safe for plants and animals? They’re going to come to it anyway, and if they do, is it safe for them? How do we know? And if it’s not safe, what do we do?’ Or: ‘Maybe there is a tree in your neighborhood that has to be cut down for safety reasons, that just happens sometimes. Can we find out if it’s been checked for nests in its trunk?’ I think about this example because in my work with bird rehabilitation, we’ve gotten screech owls who were injured because the tree just wasn’t checked at all before being cut down.”

The workshops and prompts resulted in submissions representing audio, video, illustration, ceramics, zines, painting, printmaking, cyanotypes, collages, sculpture, assemblages, poems, and digital works, all now on view at PPL. When asked what they hope visitors will take away from seeing the exhibition, Kotone replied, “It’s an opportunity to see what other people see, and notice what other people notice, and add that to your own antennae of what you’re seeing when you look out at the world. We often have a lot of interests when we’re younger, but as we get older we tend to specialize, and we internalize the idea, ‘Oh, I’m not an expert!’ But it’s always possible to bring in new knowledge for ourselves… You come to an art show and see something that someone has chosen to put a spotlight on, and then when you see it out in the world, it’s like, ‘Oh, I recognize this thing that I saw!’”

The exhibition also offers black and white illustrations that can be taken home for coloring in, and also plenty of material about local organizations and initiatives that provide a way for community members to gain access to, and knowledge about, the natural world in our own state. “There are so many interesting volunteer activities near us,” Kotone offered, “and shared educational and social activities for different ages: the Audubon Society’s Owl Prowl, the Department of Environmental Management’s Wild RI Journal, the Nature Conservancy RI’s YouTube channel – I really love these because they’re short, around ten minutes, and specific to RI. There’s also the Youth Conservation League, the Providence Neighborhood Planting Program – these and other opportunities that I’ve had available to me, just as an individual, have been so important to helping me reconnect with my childhood love of biology.” 

We hope you’ll stop by to view We All Live Here Together before it closes on September 5, and please join us for a celebratory reception on Wednesday, August 28, from 5 to 6:30 pm! You’ll have a chance to enjoy refreshments, meet and talk with Kotone and featured artists, see a short performance by puppeteer Eli Nixon, and participate in a collaborative cyanotype workshop with artist Kim Arthurs. 

We All Live Here Together is part of Creature Conserve’s 2024 Curatorial Programs and is made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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One more note: Dr. Joseph A. Chazan was a deeply dedicated steward of Rhode Island’s arts community. He supported and promoted the work of many individual artists, and generously donated his expertise and financial support to organizations that championed the creation and/or exhibition of art. We were incredibly fortunate that Joe chose to serve as an engaged and philanthropic Trustee at PPL from 2017 until his death on July 26, 2024.

NetWorks Rhode Island and the Chazan Collection: A Half-Century of RI Patronage, an exhibition of art selected from his collection of works by Rhode Island artists, is currently on view at WaterFire Arts Center. NetWorks Rhode Island, initiated in 2008 by Dr. Chazan and Bert Crenca, documented and celebrated the work of 113 Rhode Island artists through video and photographic profiles created between 2008 and 2016. This collection of video profiles captures several generations of artists whose lives, practices, and works have helped to shape our state’s vibrant, dynamic arts ecosystem. 

To appreciate the breadth and depth of Joe’s contributions to our community, we encourage you to go see this generous, expansive exhibition before it closes on September 1, and attend one or both of the remaining public events contextualizing the exhibition:

Tuesday, August 27, 6 pm: Collectors’ Talk with Barnaby Evans, Victoria Veh, Tripp Evans, and Candita Clayton, on the importance of art collecting, investing in artists, and nurturing our community.

Thursday, August 29, 6 to 8 pm: Closing Gathering with a performance by NetWorks RI Artist and musician Mark Taber.

Both events take place at the WaterFire Arts Center, get full details and read more about the exhibition here.

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Thank you for reading, we hope to see you soon!

In gratitude,

Christina BevilacquappppppppppppppppppppSophia Ellis

Programs & Exhibitions DirectorpppppppppppCommunity Partnership Facilitator