Pell Lecture 2025 Recap – Commemoration and the Power of the Temporary

The 2025 Pell Lecture on The Arts & Humanities featured a keynote address from Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and public art scholar Dr. Salamishah Tillet. Dr. Tillet’s talk, organized under the theme “Commemoration and the Power of the Temporary” examined the ways that intentional impermanence shapes monuments, memorials and commemorative practices.

Before the keynote, the event began with contributions by our Providence Commemoration Lab resident writers – a poetic invocation by Chrysanthemum, a land acknowledgment by Karla Alba, and a printed walking tour by Traci Picard. The evening progressed with an address by Mayor Brett P. Smiley, a conversation between ACT Director Joe Wilson Jr. and Deputy Director Dr. Micah Salkind, and a brief send-off for PCL Lab Director Ena Fox, who was honored for her work with the Lab. Dr. Tillet’s keynote was followed by a dialogue between her and PCL Inventory Director/Seeing Monuments instructor Dr. Renee Ater.

ACT wishes to thank Elite Systems Management for providing tech, Oasis International for hosting the event and La Gran Parada for providing dinner for attendees. PCL Photographer Rachael Maeve documented the evening with photographs.