a center for reconciliation amid demolition + displacement
In order to repair misunderstandings of the past, a museum of slavery must first acknowledge the vestiges of this past in the present.
Prompted by the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island's establishment of the Center for Reconciliation Rhode Island in order to explore its own ties to slavery and slavery in the North more broadly, this proposal frames the demolition and displacement of black neighborhoods and institutions in Providence as central to longstanding racial injustice, and looks to this history in order to understand present absences in the urban landscape.
To accomplish this, an exhibition space winds through the Cathedral of Saint John of the Episcopal Diocese of RI, using new galleries and meeting spaces to interrupt the order of the church compound and invert the inward-facing gaze outward.
This proposal then moves beyond the building to suggest the dispersal of sites of memory, interpretation, and education throughout the city.