Providence Biennial for Contemporary Art
Remedy
Curated by Joel Rosario Tapia
My Taino Spirituality and culture are the guiding principles which inform my artistic cultural and curatorial practice. In my culture, The Four Directions North East West and South are the four spiritual directions Rakuno, Sobaiko, Koromo, and Achiano representing knowledge, wisdom and enlightenment, introspection, Innocence /open mindedness respectively. This is our Medicine wheel. Our spiritual guidance system It is our Ancestral technology. It gives us our cosmic identity. Understanding these values gives us a guidance system to help navigate society.
Remedy 1. A medicine or treatment for a disease or injury. To set right an undesirable situation.
Remedy is a verb. An action taking action. A response to the White supremacist culture and values that superficially categorize, dismiss and narrowly define what America is. The climate is changing both socially and politically. The American experience and reality are changing relationally and economically. The time is ripe for discourse, the moment should be seized for the dialog that is inevitable and necessary and healthy. The moment is ripe for truth and reconciliation. Our discourse requires Honesty the kind of Honesty that lies beyond polarization. The Remedy is Truth.
The work of providing truth is being done. Remedy seeks to shine a light on the artist and practitioners doing the work of self-identifying and walking in their truths representing the kinds of change and perspectives which are alive and active in the Providence community and can be meaningful nationally and globally.
Remedy seeks to Commemorate the truth and realities of those artists work featured in the Exhibition.
Joel Rosario Tapia
About the Curator
Joel Rosario Tapia is known as TAPIA, Tureygua Taíno Cay and Chief Tureygua. He is an aboriginal urban artist of what is currently referred to as Puerto Rican descent, and a cultural practitioner of Boricua.
Tapia was born in Providence and served two tours of combat in Iraq with the US Army. He is the Superior, the Chief of the Cibuco-Bayamon Taíno Tribe, and an active voice and writer in the Indigenous Rights and Taíno diaspora. His work is influenced by indigenous Taíno Culture and hip-hop. He is a multi-hyphenate and creative director, and was the 2021 RISCA Folk Arts Fellow.
Tapia practices independently, and is the professional project manager of Caona Contractors LLC. He curates urban and indigenous BIPOC centered shows from his private gallery studio, “Da Art Dealers” in Providence. He also administers yearly Areito (indigenous Caribbean celebrations). Tapia is an author of two books on his artistic body of work, Ab-Origin and Kiss The Girls and is a co-author of the Implications & Ramifications of the Artificial Black Identity: Including a Legal Chronology of the Americas 1492 to 1968, Editions I and II, 2019/2021. Tapia is a member of Providence's Racial and Environmental Justice Committee.
> read about Tapia in PVD Arts & Letters
Photo credit: Kris Craig
Meet The Artists
I am a Latina X Artist born in Providence RI. My biological mother was born in Puerto Rico and my father was born in the Dominican Republic. I spent my childhood in the Manton Heights Projects with my grandmother. From the ages of 9-17, my family kept me living in the Dominican Republic with family and friends. I then return to the US and finished high school with all AP courses at Feinstein High. I then attended the University of Rhode Island and graduated in 2015 with a major in Fine Arts and a minor in theater design.
Amber Art and Design cultivates public spaces that advocate for equitable growth by facilitating dynamic interactions between artists, communities, institutions, and movements.
Our public projects, exhibitions, and educational activities engage thousands of people, from hundreds of communities, both across the United States and internationally. We operate with the belief that art can be a collaborative and inclusive platform for critical conversations by and for community voices.
An Algonquin Drum Group from Woonsocket/Providence RI Since 2008, the Eastern Medicine Singers are dedicated to keeping the eastern woodlands American Indian culture alive. The drum is made up of RI, NY, NJ & Southeastern Massachusetts Tribes. We are proud to sing and drum in the language of Massachuset & Wampanoag dialect. We thank elder speakers of the language both past and present for their help. We strive to be a traditional all-inclusive drum and sing for our eastern people. We have sang in Canada & Europe and most recent we created Medicine Singers a Contemporary Tribal Rock Group in 2018 with Israeli Guitarist Yonatan Gat touring internationally and featured in NY Times, Pitchfork & Indian Country Today.
Greetings my name is Daryl Black Eagle Jamieson. I am the Drum Director of the Eastern Medicine Singers. I am also the CEO of Eastern Medicine Cultural LLC a for profit company. I hold a BS in Digital Media Productions from New England Institute of Technology and a Technical Degree in Environmental Technology from the USAF. I currently operate Federal Investigations a Private Investigation company and I am a RI State Constable as well as run Black Eagle Productions LLC a new media and music company promoting culture and music productions. I currently sit on the Board of Directors for Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust Corporation and I am a veteran of the US Air Force.
Documenting through photography has always been a very important part of my life. I enjoy capturing my environment through the lens of a camera. As I've learned the medium, I realized that portraiture and event documentation are a niche of mine.
Lilly Manycolors is a mixed media visual and performing artist, sculptor, mother and teacher working in the arenas of non-more-than-humanness.
Maeve-headshot.jpg)
I believe we can transform through relationship.
Intimacy and vulnerability are inherently risky and on the other side of that risk is our wholeness and collective freedom. To open ourselves to be seen by another is a brave act, one I do not take for granted in my photography.
Sidy Maiga is a Djembe Master from Mali living in Rhode Island. He apprenticed under some of Mali’s most renowned Master Drummers. Sidy has been an active member of the local music scene, playing not only traditional Malian music, but also a fusion of Malian music with Latin, Blues, and Brazilian. His love for sharing music and culture with the community inspired him to begin Afrika Nyaga, a West African Dance and Drum Festival. Maiga received the MacColl-Johnson Fellowship 2012, the RISCA Folk Arts Fellowship 2012 & 2022 and graduated from Berklee College of Music 2020. Sidy’s djembe that he played for over 20 years is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Shey 'Rí Acu' Rivera Ríos (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker who uses storytelling across mediums to create worlds where magical realism and scifi become doors into decolonial futures. They are the founder of Studio Loba, a performance and storytelling lab for social change. Rivera was born and raised in Borikén/Puerto Rico and is based in Providence, RI -land of Narragansett and Wampanoag peoples.
I create digital and physical altars that interrupt colonial memory and liberate queer Boricua futurity. My work is transmedia, or narratives interwoven in multiple platforms and formats. I use digital art, performance, and installation to create a mejunje (mix) where magical realism and science fiction become doors to decolonial futures. My work responds to the impact of colonization today, inspired by my lived experience intertwined with the history of the land and people of Borikén (Puerto Rico), where I was born and raised. My creative practice has become my way of questioning and redefining democracy, challenging colonialism, and creating spaces for queer joy, imagination, and self-determination in the face of U.S. imperialism. I engage with creative practice as a form of repair and cultural grounding that can birth decolonial queer and Boricua futurities.
Photo by Cat Laine
Savonnara Sok, a Cambodian American artist born in Long Beach CA, now resides in Providence RI and has for the past 10 years. He uses art to translate changes and emotions throughout his life such as love, heartbreak, connection, family, life and death. Creating helps communicate what he's feeling when he can’t always find the words to.
Raymond Two Hawks Watson is a Cultural Practioner who’s areas of practice include songwriting in the Narraganset dialect, beading tradional wampum belts, and making northeastern style headdresses. Watson is of Narraganset heritage and is a Tribal National of the Mashapaug Nahaganset Tribe.
