Dear Friends,

PPL is proud to host the opening two days of the inaugural Meshanticut Cultural Placemaking Conference, part of the first annual Meshanticut Cultural Placemaking Confestival, organized by the Providence Cultural Equity Initiative (PCEI). We met recently with PCEI Founder and CEO Raymond Two Hawks Watson, who spoke about his years of working with local, national, and international organizations of all sizes to bring the conference into being, and outlined these goals for the larger Confestival: 

1) to serve as a tangible demonstration of the international interest in identifying and engaging Providence as an international cultural tourism destination;

2) to lay the foundation for the development of a nine-day annual confestival based in Providence, designed as a platform for showcasing Providence's cultural tourism infrastructure to the international cultural tourism sector;

3) to serve as the official launch for PCEI's Real Revolution 2036 Campaign, to begin planning and international relationship-building in preparation for Providence's 400th year anniversary in 2036.

The Conference will feature an exciting array of activists, scholars, artists, and community practitioners from around the globe (including from here in Rhode Island) in dialogue about cultural placemaking strategies, initiatives, and policies within the international landscape as well as in Providence. 

Here is the lineup for Thursday and Friday at PPL:

Thursday, August 17, 2023

9:15 a.m. / Opening Remarks - Raymond Two Hawks Watson (Providence Cultural Equity Initiative)

10:00 a.m. / Keynote Remarks - Gregorio Scarpella (Global Cultural Districts Network)

10:45 a.m. / Indigenous Engagement Perspective - Dr. Ronald Yonaguska Holloway (Federation of Aboriginal Nations of the Americas), Dr. David Weed (Sowams Heritage Project)

11:45 a.m. / AR/VR Perspective - Lanre Ajakaiye (25 Bough Street), Brian August (110 Stories), Brian Hendrickson (Roger Williams University)

12:45 p.m. / Lunch Break

2:00 p.m. / Artist Perspective - Shey Rivera (Studio Loba LLC), Jonny Skye (Skye Gallery), Kady Yellow (Downtown Vision Inc)

3:00 p.m. / Cultural Center Perspective - Richardson Ogidan (Southside Cultural Center of RI), Lydia Perez (Puerto Rican Institute for the Arts and Advocacy), Darrell Waldron (Rhode Island Indian Council)

4:00 p.m. / Closing Remarks - Raymond Two Hawks Watson (Providence Cultural Equity Initiative)



Friday, August 18, 2023

9:15 a.m. / Opening Remarks - Raymond Two Hawks Watson (Providence Cultural Equity Initiative)

10:00 a.m. / Keynote Remarks - Ambassador Modou Lamin Sima (The Republic of the Gambia)

10:45 a.m. / Rhode Island Tourism Infrastructure Perspective - Helen E. Dukes (Juneteenth RI), Barnaby Evans (Waterfire Providence), Donald W. King (Providence Cultural Equity Initiative)

11:45 a.m. / Nonviolence & Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Perspective - Jonathan Lewis (Nonviolent Schools RI), Dr. Silas Pinto (City of Providence), Peter Rogina (Peace Lights Project)

12:45 p.m. / Lunch Break

2:00 p.m. / International Engagement Perspective - Antoinette Pitcan (Promote West Africa), Gregorio Scarpella (Global Cultural Districts Network), Ambassador Modou Lamin Sima (The Republic of the Gambia)

3:00 p.m. / "Unveiling Ancient Truths" Griots and the Kora's Transcendence in Pop Culture" presentation

4:00 p.m. / Closing Remarks - Raymond Two Hawks Watson (Providence Cultural Equity Initiative)

The conference is free and open to the public, learn more and register to attend through Eventbrite.

And learn about other Confestival events taking place around Providence here!

Sophia had a chance to talk with Raymond last week about why the Conference and Confestival are so important right now, here’s her report on their conversation:

Raymond Two Hawks Watson, a member of the Mashapaug Narragansett Tribe, was the recipient of The Rhode Island Foundation’s 2016 Innovation Fellowship Grant and is also the CEO and founder of the Providence Cultural Equity Initiative. He took the time to talk with me about what cultural equity and cultural placemaking mean and what they look like in the greater city of Providence, topics that will be at the forefront of conversations at the Meshanticut Cultural Placemaking Conference. 

Within so much of the growing community work led by Black, Native, and POC organizers all around the city, there is the unyielding emphasis that nothing exists in a vacuum — especially as settler colonialism seeks to erase and homogenize Native and Black lineages and experiences. He explains: “Cultural equity is making sure that all of the pertinent narratives that tie into the history of a space are properly acknowledged and celebrated…. What we find is that cultural equity is first the acknowledgment that all of that diversity exists, and then it's the exploration of that diversity and the seeking to identify best practices, strategies, proper ways to engage that diversity, so that it's not just washed or conglomerated or categorized in a manner that's easily accessed for a particular group of people.”

Thinking about what it means to honor the webs of stories is essential to understanding what PCEI is working towards. Their mission is to “steward and ambassador Rhode Island's cultural sector and economy,” and their vision is to “transform Providence into New England's premier cultural hub,” by “raising awareness, advocacy, and hosting programming and initiatives based in cultural development and cultural equity.” PCEI is one of the few organizations dedicated to understanding site specificity and how that ripples within creative spaces. During Raymond’s work with the Innovation Fellowship Grant, he partnered with artist Shey Rivera and community stakeholders to develop a Cultural Equity Best Practices Guide as an intervention into the separation of “art” and “culture,” which led to further exploration into cultural placemaking.

For Native and Indigenous communities in Providence and Rhode Island, the fight for sovereignty is still an ongoing struggle — for federal recognition, and against historical amnesia and continued land seizure — and different peoples have different stories. Raymond explains: “It's looking at those narratives and those people and those cultures and experiences that are specific to Providence, and that really tie into the cultural placemaking— because the Indigenous narrative and experience of Providence is not the Indigenous narrative and experience of anywhere but Providence. The things that happened here with Indians are specific to the Indians that were here.” Cultural placemaking pushes us to ask questions about genealogy and locale, and to find those connections through creative expression. How are we supporting physical, cultural, and social identities when defining place? What are ways we are establishing trust when using a participatory processes that shape public space? “There may be some relation to other places based upon general sorts of experiences and themes and understandings. My family moved from the reservation to Providence — that's our history, that's our experience. Indians that moved up to Worcester and Indians that moved up to Boston don't have that same experience. We need to speak to those people to find out what their experience and their culture are like, based on their time here in Providence. And then you do that same thing with the Italians. You do that same thing with the Irish. You do that same thing with Liberians. You just identify the specific cultural communities, and you allow them to share, and you promote their experience tied to this particular place that we're all calling Providence.”

As for what’s going on in the coming months, Raymond asks us to check out The Center for Indigenous People's Rights, which will be hosting a conference this October around Indigenous law and policy. There is also the Rhode Island Heritage Day Festival coming up on Saturday, October 21 at the WaterFire Arts Center. He also wants to continue to generate support for annual cultural festivals like the Cape Verdean Festival and Puerto Rican Bay Festival.

In other news, PPL is now accepting applications for our 2024 Creative Fellowship! The 2024 Creative Fellow will create new, original work in the field of writing related to the topic of maritime culture, whaling, and the sea as part of the Library’s 2024 exhibition. Read more about the Creative Fellowship and application process here and here, applications are due October 1 by 5 pm.

We hope to see you soon!

In gratitude,



Christina Bevilacqua xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxSophia Ellis

Programs & Exhibitions Director xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxCommunity Partnerships Facilitator