Dear Friends,

This spring PPL has a rich array of current and upcoming programs and exhibitions that got their inspiration from research in PPL’s ever growing, ever surprising Special Collections, and we hope you can join us to learn what so many artists, scholars, and community members have been working on!

On Tuesday, May 7, 5 to 6:30 pm, Digital Humanities Fellow Abby Dolan will introduce her in-progress project documenting the 1887-90 whaling voyage of the Eunice H. Adams, captained by William A. Martin, one of New England’s most prominent Black whaling ship captains. Documents detailing the voyage are part of PPL’s Nicholson Whaling Collection, and thanks to support from the Papitto Opportunity Connection, these documents have recently been digitized, making them available to anyone with an internet connection. Digital Humanities Fellow Abby Dolan is now working to create a project that pulls elements from each of the documents, in order to give viewers a sense of the journey as a whole – and she needs your help! Please join us to learn about Abby’s in-progress project, hear about the process behind how the original documents contribute to the overall project, and try out the project and provide your feedback – get details and register here! 

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And please join us Wednesday, May 8, 5 to 6:30 pm, to meet and celebrate the artists behind the four fabulous exhibitions currently on view on PPL’s third floor: Rhode Island Creatives Show/ Carl Jung Series (artist Jacques Bidon), Stand to Sea (artist Allison Bianco), From Hold to Horizon (artists Becci Davis and Kei Soares Cobb),  and Words from the Library! (artist Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., who will be represented by printer Dan Wood, who helped organize the exhibition with Amos).

From Hold to Horizon

While these exhibitions came about independently, this is Providence – so cross-pollination was a happy inevitability, and however serendipitously, they share some creative DNA. Becci Davis and Kei Soares Cobb also worked in PPL’s Nicholson Whaling Collection with Captain William Martin’s logbook, for their interactive project/exhibition From Hold to Horizon. For Stand to Sea (pictured right), printmaker Allison Bianco researched Captain Martin’s logbooks, as well as accounts and images of major hurricanes found in the Rhode Island Collections. Allison, Jacques Bidon, and Dan Wood were among local printmakers who participated in the recent Southern Graphics Council International Conference in Providence, during which Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. was given the Lifetime Achievement Award, and created prints especially for exhibition and distribution within the public libraries of Providence. Fittingly, some of Amos’s work at PPL is on view in the Updike Room, which houses items from the Updike Collection on the History of Printing; Jacques’s prints are on view just outside the Updike Room. While Amos can’t be with us on May 8, exhibition co-organizer Dan Wood will be on hand, and we were fortunate to record a conversation with Dan and Amos during the SGCI Conference for the inaugural episode of PPL’s new podcast, THIS, THAT, And ANOTHER – be sure to listen! 

Words from the Library!

Rhode Island Creatives Show / Carl Jung

Series

Join us to celebrate these creative artists and organizers, learn more about their work, and discover their inspirations and connections (including those forged within Special Collections). Some of these exhibitions will only be up through May 10, so be sure to join us for this lively event – get event details and register here! 

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And while we’re on the topic of celebration, this month we were thrilled and honored to be one of eight Rhode Island organizations awarded a Public Project Grant from RI Humanities! Funding to PPL will support programs and participatory events, including From Hold to Horizon, exploring the sea as a dynamic space of ungovernability, constant motion, and unfixable indeterminacy. In collaboration with URI, we are currently developing interdisciplinary events for fall that trace maritime inflections in the histories of slavery, conceptions of queer identity, and climate change, and investigate the sea as a generative space of literal and metaphorical transformation, upheaval, dissolution, washing away, and renewal.

Stay tuned for news of additional events and exhibitions coming up soon! 

In gratitude,



Christina Bevilacqua xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxSophia Ellis

Programs & Exhibitions Director xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxCommunity Partnership Facilitator

p.s. Our hard-working friends at LitArts RI have sent out a survey to determine their strategic planning initiatives – help shape the future of literary arts in our state by filling out the survey here!