Reimagining RI’s State House: New Exhibit Highlights Community Suggestions
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
How “should” the Rhode Island State House look in 2022?
“My State House” — a two-year community revisioning project that asked for proposals for new community activities, art installations, or design interventions that would make this building and its extensive grounds more welcoming and more accessible — is opening its exhibit of responses this week.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTParticipants were asked, “If we had to design a statehouse today, what would it look like and whom would it serve?"
“Some of the suggestions are quite fanciful,” said Co-Curator Marisa Angell Brown, Associate Director of the Center for Complexity at Rhode Island School of Design. “It’s not necessarily about what it would be like to build out any of them, more just more about inspiring people to ask more questions, especially the grounds. There’s a huge amount of the outdoor park space at the State House, right in the middle of Smith Hill — could community members feel really welcome for picnics or community events?”
“It would be nice,” said Brown, when asked if she thought officials — and lawmakers — would take some of the proposals into consideration.
The project began in the summer of 2021, when hundreds of Rhode Islanders were invited to map “their” State House for their view of a “true public commons” in keeping with its symbolic identity as “the people’s house.”
Part of the exhibit also includes reimagined “maps” of the grounds — from the young and old.
“This started by asking Rhode Islanders about what would make the grounds more accessible — some are from elderly who’ve known the building for years and some are crayon drawings from little kids and some are even from tourists,” said Brown. “The maps are really interesting and speak to hopes and dreams of what the building could really be."
The exhibition at the Rhode Island State House will run June 2 – September 28.
About Project
My State House features work by Cerberus Studios, TL Studio Landscape Architecture, JLY Designs, Man Hu, Baishu Lu and Jiayi Wang.
The project was co-curated by Brown and Lane Sparkman, Associate Director of Education and Public Programs, Rhode Island Department of State, with Hanna Leatherman, Dan Mangano and Julia Zimring.
Brown and Sparkman are members of the Rhode Island State House Restoration Society, which was created to support the “restoration, preservation, interpretation, betterment and benefit of the Rhode Island State House.”
For more information about the exhibit, go to www.ristatehouse.org.
The project received funding from the Rhode Island Foundation, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, Providence's Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism and the Rhode Island Culture, Humanities, and Arts Recovery Grant (RI CHARG) program, with additional support from Rhode Island's Department of State and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University.
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