About

The Mapping Arts Project maps cities through places where artists have lived and worked historically. Each city focuses on a specific time period, and connects artists to places where they lived, worked, or visited through maps, archival photographs and documents, and ethnographic and historical narratives. This is an on-going work in progress, and we invite you to participate in building the Mapping Arts Project.

The project was created by artist and cultural anthropologist Lara Stein Pardo, and is run by Blackbird Arts and Research, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to innovative arts and research projects that connect the arts, history, and the public.

Mapping Arts – Providence is a collaborative effort by Brown University graduate students and faculty to digitally map the lives, influence, and work of black artists in Providence from the 1860s through the 1960s. The project engages the university and larger Providence community via a publicly accessible, digital map with historical information and images about black artistic influence on Providence. Furthermore, it situates Providence as an important site of black Atlantic cultural production. Artists including painter Edward Bannister, singer Sarah Vaughan, and jazz musician James Berry spent time in the city and shaped its cultural landscape.

Mapping Arts – Providence was developed and launched in connection with the course, Space and Place: Geographies of the Black Atlantic in the Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University, taught by Lara Stein Pardo. The students who worked on the project include Felicia Bevel, Keila Davis, and Lydia Kelow-Bennett. Their original research and contributions are noted throughout the site.