my state house | 2021 -2022
Exhibition | june 2 - september 28, 2022 | rhode island state house lower level gallery
co-curator: lane sparkman, Associate Director for Education, Rhode Island Department of State
National and state capitol campuses signal a country or region’s ideology and conceptualizations of civic life, participation, democratic decision-making and political power: they are office buildings, cultural and historic sites, symbols of identity, community gathering spaces, and sites of protest and activism. As we enter the 22nd century, the question of what a capitol should look like, whom it should serve, and for what range of activities, is increasingly urgent as states and citizens negotiate access, equity, and power.
My State House was a participatory art and design project that invited community members in the smallest state, Rhode Island, to share ideas that would make their state capitol more welcoming, inclusive, and dynamic by mapping or drawing their ideas over the spring, summer and fall of 2021. Over 300 drawn and annotated maps were collected from across the state at community gatherings, festivals, farmers’ markets and schools. These maps were used as the basis for an international design competition that invited designers, artists, activists and community members to propose designs or programming interventions based on one or more of the maps. A jury selected six teams, and these six were awarded honoraria to develop exhibition boards, which were displayed at the Rhode Island State House during the summer of 2021. Two prizes were awarded: a jury prize, and a people’s choice award, based on ballots collected during the exhibition.
The community-made maps remain archived online and are being consulted by a design firm that is creating a new master plan for the capitol campus. These maps provide a record of participants’ frustration at not always feeling welcome in this space. During one mapping session, a Central Falls elder in a wheelchair rolled up to the table and submitted a map that simply says, “Where would I find the wheelchair entrance?” while another 35-year-old Warwick resident wrote in very small letters in the top corner of a map, “I didn’t know it was open to the public. I’ve never been inside.” During another, a Black teenager named Jayden said, “I always thought it was, like, state property, like you couldn’t walk on — like if you did, it was like, jail time,” and later, “Everything about it just screams '‘You can’t come’…unless you’re verified, unless you’re like a big dog, like you’re making decisions for the state.”
What should the statehouse of the 22nd century look like, and whom should it serve?
My State House was made possible through grants from Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the Rhode Island Foundation, Rhode Island State House Restoration Society, and the City of Providence Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism, and with support from Brown University and the Rhode Island Department of State.
More information about the My State House is available here.
Clippings
“Reimagining RI’s State House: New Exhibit Highlights Community Suggestions,” GoLocalProv (May 31, 2022)
