Photographer for Providence Commemoration Lab Photo Documentation

Funded by the Mellon Foundation and the American Rescue Plan, the Providence Commemoration Lab (PCL) is a program co-administered by The Department of Art, Culture and Tourism (ACT) and the Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS).

ACT and RIHS have commissioned nine Providence artists to interrogate the ways that Providence residents construct and share memory and culture at three distinct sites in South Providence: Columbus Square, Roger Williams Park, and Public Street. The PCL will site and stage new, temporary works on public properties that invite unexpected ways of understanding commemoration as a communal process of historical redress and spatial reclamation.

We anticipate that the Labs will be spaces where the community engagement process and culminating works challenge the stakeholder communities and the larger public to re-think not only whose stories get told, but how they get told – in what forms, using what media, and for what durations?

ACT and RIHS require a photographer or photographers to document the activities of the Providence Commemoration Lab (PCL), which will unfold in phases from Spring 2024 through Summer 2025. The Engagement, Design and Manifestation phases at all three sites will be the most important to document. We want to capture the artists’ engagement with communities—which could be meetings, art workshops, informal gatherings such as a picnic, creative interventions that produce spontaneous interactions, and more. Possible activities of the Design phase are charrettes and prototyping with community members, while the Manifestation phase includes artists creating final installations or productions, and the culminating public events where the commemorative works are “unveiled”, performed, or otherwise shared.

We expect photo documentation to provide images that will share the progress and excitement of the PCL in real time through the PCL website and to create a useful image archive for the Project.

The photo documentation will take place as needed over the 12-18 months of the PCL, determined by activities during key project phases. We would prefer to contract with the same photographer/s for the duration, so that they become familiar with the artists, project sites, and participating neighborhoods.

The photographer/s will work in concert with the artists and PCL Director to determine when they need to be present to document the activities of the three mentioned phases, understanding that all the activities will not need to be documented.