Market House was built in 1775 and stands between North Main Street and the Providence River. Historically, it has been used as a meeting place, commercial market, and city hall. Now, RISD owns the property, using it for “corporate and educational purposes” according to a dedication plaque on the building.
In this project, I made use of images and documents from the RIHS, PPL, Brown Archives, and RISD Archives. Abstraction and weaving became important tools to visually represent the complexity of research. The more time I spent in the archives, the more I began to understand that Market House’s connections to the slavery trade are difficult to untangle and contextualize. On the one hand, I had tangible documents detailing a design and fundraising process led by slave owners who also built Brown University. Market House was a major hub of transportation and economic life for Providence and was not unconnected from the broader wealth-creating slavery trade in the US. However, I also could not find primary sources that point to an open air market as had been commonly suggested in my studios and art history classes.
Synthesizing this work into a creative format brought me to deeper questions about the nature of documented and oral history. I wondered, how does Providence (or America, in general) tell the story of its wealth accumulation? How do rumors and gossip influence these discussions? Who determines where in the landscape slavery is remembered? Which sources count as information? How do we, the inheritors of this legacy, live with the remnants?
In this project, I made use of images and documents from the RIHS, PPL, Brown Archives, and RISD Archives. Abstraction and weaving became important tools to visually represent the complexity of research. The more time I spent in the archives, the more I began to understand that Market House’s connections to the slavery trade are difficult to untangle and contextualize. On the one hand, I had tangible documents detailing a design and fundraising process led by slave owners who also built Brown University. Market House was a major hub of transportation and economic life for Providence and was not unconnected from the broader wealth-creating slavery trade in the US. However, I also could not find primary sources that point to an open air market as had been commonly suggested in my studios and art history classes.
Synthesizing this work into a creative format brought me to deeper questions about the nature of documented and oral history. I wondered, how does Providence (or America, in general) tell the story of its wealth accumulation? How do rumors and gossip influence these discussions? Who determines where in the landscape slavery is remembered? Which sources count as information? How do we, the inheritors of this legacy, live with the remnants?