PVDFest 2017
We are on the edge of PVDFest and there is a lot happening, in fact, this year we are presenting four full days of activity.
Participate in the RI Mini Maker Fair on Saturday June 3rd. If you are interested in having a table to show your work, click here. Tabling is free!
We have also built out from the Saturday festivities in both directions. Between June 1st thru June 4th, there’s something for everyone happening in the Creative Capital:
Thursday June 1st
PVDFest 2017 will for the very first time feature an ideas conference devoted to the city’s maker communities. “A Lively Experiment,” to be held at Aurora from 8:30am until 4:45pm, is the brainchild of Mayor Elorza and the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism and is being produced in partnership with the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, FirstWorks, RI Mini Maker Fair and all the many PVDFest collaborators. It begins over coffee with a welcome from maker enthusiast, Mayor Jorge Elorza and continues with a 9:30AM maker panel and 11:00AM workshop. Panel participants include RI Maker Faire Pioneer Brian Jepson, Executive Director of The SteelYard, Howie Sneider, Executive Director of the RI Historical Society, Morgan Grefe, and DS Kinsel from FUTUREMAKERS Lab in Philadelphia. Following a stop by the Grant’s Block food truck court over the lunch hour, participants will go back into Aurora for facilitated one-on-one conversations between local and national thought leaders active in the maker movement. These will be framed around the future needs of the maker scene in Providence and beyond. At 2:30PM, the conference will host a special keynote address by Dorothy Jones-Davis, co-founder of the National Maker Faire, the DC Mini Maker Faire, and the #MakerMap, before transforming into an “unconference” through which participants will group together around emergent shared interests and affinities. Click here for tickets; the regular conference fee is $45 and $30 for artists, designers, students and nonprofit professionals.
At 5:00PM, AC+T is curating a 320-foot community table dinner along Washington Street in Kennedy Plaza. Building off the tremendous energy of the Department of Art, Culture + Tourism’s Sowing Place programs on the Southside, and hosted by Sowing Place/Rhode Island Black Storytellers’ Valerie Tutson, whose organization’s Community Flavors model helped inspire this event, PVDFest partners, community food justice advocates, and Providence taste-makers welcome 300 Providence residents to a celebration of the city’s culinary cultures and traditions of hospitality. A limited number of $15 are available here. but no money will be exchanged at the dinner itself.
From 8:00PM – 11:00PM the Thursday party continues at The SteelYard with a free post-dinner dance party.
Friday June 2nd
“Ivy League Rumba,” a film made in Providence, screens for free at Aurora from 5:00PM-7:00PM.
At 8:00PM Bandaloop will offer a free preview of their Saturday headline performance at 10 Dorrance Street
From 8:30PM – 10:00PM PALO!, star of “Ivy League Rumba” takes the Alex + Ani Center stage for a free salsa performance.
Sunday June 4th
Following the main events on Saturday, June 3rd, we will be moving to Dexter Park for an awesome finale featuring Community MusicWorks students, faculty, and alumni, and a participatory performance by DBR. Check out all the details on our blog.