Carolina Briones and Vatic Kuumba announced as artists in residence at Carroll Towers and Chad Brown
The City of Providence Department of Art Culture and Tourism (ACT) has awarded Carolina Briones and Vatic Tayari Kuumba, artists with community driven social practices, residencies with Providence Housing Authority (PHA) through the One Nation/One Project Arts for EveryBody initiative.
Artists, civic leaders, and community health providers in 18 cities and towns across America will simultaneously premiere an array of large-scale participatory art projects which will draw on the sounds, styles, and stories of their communities to answer the prompt “No place like home.” Arts for EveryBody has commissioned a series of new research studies to further examine the connection between arts participation and the health of a community. Briones and Kuumba will soon begin one-year residencies at Carroll Tower and Chad Brown, respectively, where they will collaborate with residents to create, premiere and/or unveil a new work of art as part of a national celebration taking place on July 27, 2024. For more information, see Arts for EveryBody or follow the project’s Instagram page to stay informed about the project.
Carolina Briones is an Ecuadorian visual artist and community leader with over twenty-five years of experience working with the Latino community in Providence. Her work utilizes different elements such as text clippings from magazines and books, napkins, various textures, handwriting, painting on ceramics, jewelry, collage, and porcelain. Briones is deeply inspired by nature and the cycle of life and has facilitated workshops with seniors of different abilities, including mandala workshops, bilingual arts and crafts programming, and “Pinceladas,” painting workshops. She has served as the Latino Program Manager at the Providence Community Library for twenty-three years. Additionally, Briones has received multiple recognitions for her contributions and dedication to the community. Her work is vibrant and accessible, she is a beloved and respected member of the Providence community, and we are thrilled to have her on board!
Vatic Tayari Kuumba is a creative artivist rooted in words and rhythm whose work is guided by antiracist and environmental justice principles. In recent years, he has moved from slam poetry into theatre, playwrighting, and screenwriting for film. As an artist facilitator, Kuumba worked with One Square World Using art to design and implement processes and opportunities for transformational education in city government, non-profits, and community organizations. As a teaching artist he has worked with Children-Youth-Community/Rhode Island Artists and Clinicians facilitating a process to help students develop skills to cope with trauma and with the Racial and Environmental Justice Committee (REJC) as a Project Team Member in the Deep Democracy project engaging city residents and city officials in systems transformation. Kuumba was also the AS220 Youth / Theatre Coordinator from 2016 to 2018 where he facilitated a youth-led devised production that imagined a future world free of oppression. Kuumba is also the recipient of the New Genre Merit Fellowship (2018) and the Playwright Merit Fellowship (2017) awarded by Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. We know him for his compassionate and detailed thought-process, and are excited to see the unveiling of his community collaboration!
For more information about the call, click here.
