Photographer Scott Lapham's documentary project Bearing Witness incorporates a series of photographic portraits of Providence's disappearing industrial architecture and interviews with the people who worked in the mills.
The exhibition will be installed at the Harkness Building at 50 Aborn Street in downtown Providence, through the generosity of Cornish Associates, Kim & Liz Chace and a grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.
A portion of the proceeds from the exhibition will benefit the Providence Preservation Society (PPS) - which has featured Lapham's work in their annual Ten Most Endangered Properties programs.
PPS will also host a lecture by Rick Greenwood on industrial architecture in Providence on Thursday, October 20th at 7 PM.
"The factories and mills represented in this show . . . are gone now. . . . Strip malls, highway on-ramps, and big box retail occupy their footprints. . . . Lapham captures the emotions surrounding the buildings, the tragedy of their destruction. . . . Scott seems to capture the soul of a place, the ghosts trapped in the mortar, under the granite sills and between the bricks."
--J Hogue, Founder, ArtInRuins.com
"Scott explores with an insider's eye the intimate unseen spaces within industrial complexes. . . . The emotion contained in the images reflects the unease of a broad community of artists, preservationists, architects, developers, citizens, politicians and students about the demolition of much of Providence's industrial past. Scott's photographs are made as portraits of vanishing spaces and biographies of dying buildings."
--Sara Agniel, Director, Gallery Agniel
SHOW DATES: October 1 - 29, 2005 PLACE: Harkness Building, 50 Aborn Street, Providence GALLERY HOURS: Thursday - Saturday 12 - 6 PM RECEPTION: Thursday, October 6th from 6 - 9 PM Sponsored by Narragansett Beer LECTURE: Thursday, October 20th at 7 PM during Gallery Night Sponsored by Providence Preservation Society
About the lecturer
Rick Greenwood is a Principal Preservation Planner at the R.I. Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission and Visiting Professor in Brown University's Urban Studies program. He is a leading scholar of industrial architecture and archaeology in the U.S.
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