Today from 4:30 - 6:30pm join RISD grad students as they explore the idea of public space in Providence. Pockets of it can be found anywhere in Providence - from parks to public bathrooms to sidewalks. Public space is somewhat subjective and affects people in their day-to-day lives, sometimes without their realizing it. We are raising questions today to get people to stop and think about what it means to be “members of the public.” Can everyone be a member? Or is it a choice? And how do we use our membership with the public as we move through spaces in our cities and towns?

Who Are We?
We are a group of graduate students and recent graduates who took RISD 0710H, a RISD/Brown collaboration class called Public Art: History, Theory, and Practice. Our Masters degrees are in a range of disciplines including photography, ceramics, arts education, landscape architecture, and public humanities. The class explored twentieth and twenty-first century public art: its history, themes, controversies, typologies, and administration. We studied and created proposals for war monuments and memorials, and proposed eleven different pieces of public art for Kennedy Plaza. What you are witnessing is a recreation of our final project.

Weather permitting, the ice will be down and the skating season will begin mid-November at the Bank of America City Center! Hours are Monday - Friday 10am - 10pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am - 10pm. Get those skates sharpened!

DOWNCITY HAWK
a photographic exhibit
Peerless Lofts Atrium | 150 Union Street | Providence RI 02903
October 3-31, 2008
M - F 9am-9pm
Saturday 9am-5pm
Sunday 12pm-5pm

When days are warm, Downcity’s
Burnside Park is filled with people…
but in colder months only pigeons remain…
and last winter, one voracious
red-tailed hawk came to hunt them.

All photographs taken in 2008 by Peter Green in Burnside Park.

Cherries, Apples, nectarines.  Pumpkins, lettuce, rutabega.  It’s the usual Friday midday crowd at Kennedy Plaza these days.  Kennedy Plaza has quite the collection of delicious, Farm Fresh fruits and veggies at its weekly Farmers’ Market every Friday.  This is no secret, as the crowds have been feeling the buzz, and heading over the the market’s headquarters–a neat little row of white tents bursting with beautiful produce, baked goods and local treats.  Farm Fresh RI organizes the vendors, who include such RI favorites as Young Family Farm, Simmons Farm, Seven Stars Bakery, Barden Orchard and many more. (more…)

Hand-made flags hosting messages of peace hung from trees and fences surrounding Burnside Park on Sunday, September 21st in celebration of the United Nations’ International Day of Peace.  The Peace Flag Project is one of the many organizations hosting events across the globe each year to celebrate worldwide tolerance, peace and unity. The Peace Flag Project is based on the tradition of Tibetan Prayer Flags.

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Providence Street Painting Festival - POSTPONED to raindate. New date: October 4, 11am - 10pm, Bank of America Skating Center, Free And Open To The Public.

Step Out: Walk to Fight Diabetes - CONTINUING AS SCHEDULED, Saturday, September 27th, 1pm - 6pm; Burnside Park.

On Sunday, September 21, 2008 from 3:00 to 6:00 PM, the Peace Flag Project is sponsoring Providence’s fifth annual celebration of the UN International Day of Peace. The American Friends Service Committee of Southeast New England and the International Institute are also sponsoring the event. It is free and open to the public.  The Peace Day observation will be held at Burnside Park, Kennedy Plaza, in downtown Providence.  There will be activities for adults and children, including making Peace Flags and Pinwheels for Peace, face painting, origami, Caporeiora demonstration, and Voter Registration.  (more…)

Fountain of Youth, the newly relocated skate and apparel shop on Eddy Street, opened with grand style on Saturday, September 13.  Part Owner and professional skateboarder, Donny Barley, hosted a skateboarding demo at the Bank of America Skating Center.  Hundreds of youngsters and old-schoolers on four wheels showed up for the event, filling the rink with the sound of pounding boards.  (more…)

Saturday, September 13th, the Downtown Student Experience, an event put on by the Providence Foundation and Downtown Improvement District,  gathered students, life-sized puppets, tiny dogs and skateboarders to the Biltmore Park and the Bank of America Skating Center to kick off the opening of the school year.  Big Nazo puppets danced to the likes of LLOVE, the Jesse Minute, and Innocent Uprising playing live at the Skating Center stage.

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College students! On Saturday, September 13^th, join The Providence Foundation and Downtown Improvement District for the Downtown Student Experience.

The afternoon will be filled with live music and free activities in Biltmore Park, next to the Bank of America Skating Center in Kennedy Plaza. Listen to the sounds of WBRU, beginning at 2PM, while sampling coffee and eating delicious treats. Lots of vendors!

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