Our fourth annual Bartenders Ball returns to R1 Indoor Karting in Lincoln RI on September 29th! This event is all about recognizing and celebrating your favorite local bartenders! We would love your input. Nominating is NOW OPEN for the Bartender Awards portion of the event. Do you have a favorite all-star behind the bar? Maybe […]
For cover artist Shey Rivera Ríos, it’s all about community. “I create in all kinds of art forms; I really love performance and visual art,” they say, adding, “All of it is connected to community and organizing.” The artwork for the Motif cover was taken from a poster Rivera Ríos designed for the fundraiser Foo […]
HELLO! This is Dave Dvorchak, AS220’s Communications Director. I’m thrilled to be helping out with this issue of Motif, and all of us at AS220 are grateful for the opportunity to reach readers like you. I’ve been an avid reader of alternative papers (I know that’s not necessarily the term anymore) for most of my […]
A whole lot can happen in six years. Since AS220 hosted its last Foo Fest, the world has shifted on its axis. We’ve lived through a global pandemic, navigated yet another election cycle that tested our democracy, and watched foreign and domestic cities alike burned and destroyed in real-time through our screens. Despite all of […]
Like many Black women, I love all things Octavia Butler, and one of my favorites is the concept of Earthseed; a fictional religion that weaves its values into her novels. The counter-cultural ethos that she describes always reminded me of AS220’s mission and our desperate desire to live in a world that is beautiful, creative, […]
How does it feel for you to be participating in the Growing the Networks show after years of watching the Networks RI project happen? Susan Clausen: It’s great, it just reinforces how massive the artist community is in RI. One project and one sort of perspective could in no way touch the enormous amount of […]
School may be out for summer, but young people at AS220 Youth aren’t taking a break from learning life, business, and creative skills. Youth’s Summer Jobs program is in full swing with 80 young artists and creatives enrolled. I caught up with Janay Pina, AS220’s Director of Programs, to get the details. How is AS220 […]
Haus of Codec is a Providence-based non-profit organization that is dedicated to finding permanent housing solutions and workforce opportunities for LGBTQ youth at risk for, or experiencing, homelessness. I took the opportunity to visit their offices, housed in a converted artist studio at AS220’s Empire Street complex, and talk to Julio Berroa (Executive Director) and […]
The South Providence People’s Archive (SPPA) is a collaborative project between Providence-based artists k. funmilayo aileru and Edwige Charlot. Commissioned through the Providence Commemoration Lab, the SPPA seeks to “contribute intimate accounts of Black and Native American life to the public record” by collecting, recording, and preserving ephemera, objects, and memories “that document the people, […]
A long time ago at a Foo Fest far, far away, I witnessed something marvelous happening. It was late at night, perhaps 11 PM or midnight, and things were beginning to settle down. Everyone was watching the band on the outdoor stage, and the artists, vendors, and organizations who had been doing programming under the […]