Fabric Arts Festival Connects New Bedford and Fall River to Providence
The festival was founded to unite the three cities through a series of music concerts, art exhibitions, public art, dinners and workshops.
Fall River Heritage State Park in Fall River, Massachusetts. Photo from Getty Images.
New Bedford and Fall River, Massachusetts, are so close to Providence, yet the two Portuguese-influenced cities feel a world away. The Fabric Arts Festival was founded to help unite the three cities through a series of music concerts, art exhibitions, public art, dinners and educational workshops. The festival is taking place from October 5-14 at various locations.
Fabric Arts Festival was co-founded by Portugalia Marketplace co-owner Michael Benevides and Portugal-based curator Jesse James, and it’s organized by Casa dos Açores de Nova Inglaterra (CANI) and a production team on both continents. Artists, a chef, and performers flew in from Lisbon, Germany, and other international and North American cities specifically for the event, bringing their unusual art and performance and innovative cuisine to the area.
“We’re excited for the fourth edition of Fabric Arts Festival to present a program comprised of contemporary Portuguese, North American and international artists,” says Fabric co-founder Jesse James.
The historic district of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Photo from Getty Images.
It’s a way to connect three different cities to the common story of immigration. “The connection aims to invite audiences to view Fall River and the region as a territory of arrivals and geographic intersections, with a program inspired by the diasporic aesthetics, languages and codes that shape the region,” Benevides says.
Last night, I attended the “Tropical Anthology” dinner performance by Caique Tizzi at Courtland Club in Providence. Tizzi was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and lives and works in Berlin, Germany. The multi-course dinner involved a theatrical presentation of cuisine and sculptures made from Indigenous foods, such as pineapples and corn cobs. During the dinner, Tizzi spoke about how these foods that are indigenous to the Americas came to be transformed into symbols of colonialism. “Tropical Anthology analyzes through the lens of food, how tropical ingredients from tropical latitudes have shaped our world for good and bad,” he says, referencing the pineapple, which also comes from Brazil.
“The pineapple is a symbol of hospitality so when the Portuguese arrived in Brazil, the people gave the pineapple as a symbol of hospitality – a welcome – and the rest is history,” Tizzi says. “It became so popular that the Portuguese bought it back to Europe – the ones that they could save – and it became a luxury item.”
Tizzi narrated the presentation of the meal and made sitting around a communal table more of a multicultural performance in which strangers became friends over conversation. At one point during the dinner, Tizzi poured clay pots filled with edible soil and boiled potatoes directly onto the tables for guests to dig in and enjoy together. It created a moment of cultural unity in a challenging world.
View a video of the culinary presentation.
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More details on the artists and locations can be found on the festival’s website, fabricfallriver.com. All event tickets can be purchased online at Fabric’s website and Eventbrite platform.
Providence city skyline. Photo from Getty Images.
Here is the schedule:
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6
Opening Party
MACHINES WITH MAGNETS | 400 Main St., Pawtucket, RI
Doors open at 7 PM. Tickets are available on our website and at the door, on the day of the event.
FABRIC curates a night of live music and DJ sets at Machines With Magnets and welcomes Providence, RI sensation Baby; Baby: Explores (8:00pm), followed by Portuguese musician Surma, known for her dreamy experimental electronica (9:00PM), leading into a dance party with Isabella, a sound artist, DJ, and composer best known for her hard-driving, all-hardware live sets and off-kilter releases (10:00PM), and capped off by renowned Portuguese-Angolan DJ Lycox from Principe Discos (11:00PM).
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7
6 PM | SUPERNATURAL – FILM
JORGE JÁCOME | RISD MUSEUM | 20 North Main Street
Doors open at 5 PM. Free entrance, limited to the capacity of the venue
Occupying the hazy intersection of fact and fiction, this film embarks on a form-defying journey that traverses the realms of curiosities, video snippets, and personal revelations. Its origin as a stage spectacle, rather than a screen production, accounts for its experimental nature. Amidst the lush landscape of Madeira Island, it challenges conventional notions of ‘natural’ and prompts us to broaden our understanding to encompass greater complexity.
NEW BEDFORD, MA
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12
The Azores Islands boost a fertile cultural scene and a new generation of artists, collectives, and projects that expand beyond the archipelago. Honoring CANI’S mission to connect the Islands and its diaspora, FABRIC, working in collaboration with the Center for Portuguese Studies & Culture at UMASS Dartmouth, teams up with the New Bedford Whaling Museum and AHA! New Bedford to curate a special program that showcases two examples of dynamic happenings in the Azorean cultural landscape.
Doors open at 5 PM. Free entrance to both events, limited to the capacity of the venue. Registration is required. There will be an intermission between both events.
6:45 PM | MÁTRIA – SHORT FILM
CATARINA GONÇALVES | NEW BEDFORD WHALING MUSEUM | 18 Johnny Cake Hill
Mátria is a sensorial journey to the womb of São Miguel Island, where Natália Correia, a Portuguese poet, writer, and congresswoman, was born exactly 100 years ago. “Mátria” is made in her honor as three women embody her spirit in different ways through an exploration of the female body in different stages of life. A film about freedom of both mind and body, where Natália’s timeless poetry entangles both reality and fiction.
7:30 PM | WE SEA – CONCERT
WE SEA is an Azorean band, whose members are from São Miguel, who have gained recognition in the regional and national circuit in recent years. Based on the Azorean music scene of the 80s and 90s, which goes beyond music and contaminates the aesthetics of concerts and videos, often working with visual artists.
FALL RIVER, MA
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13
5 PM | HYPERBALLADS – GROUP EXHIBITION
ALLYSON VIEIRA, BEATRIZ BRUM, EVA PAPAGARMARITI, GIL FERRÃO, GONÇALO PRETO, HORÁCIO FRUTUOSO, NADIA BELERIQUE, SÓNIA ALMEIDA, YULI YAMAGATA | THE IGNITION SPACE AT GATHER | 44 Troy Street
Opening event | Doors open at 5 PM, and entrance is free.
Visiting | Exhibition open through Nov 18th – Thursday (12-5 PM) Fridays (12-5 PM) and Saturdays (12 – 5 PM)
“Hyperballads” (curated by Jesse James) is a collective art showcase that explores the intangible, delving into the emotions we sense but cannot behold and the realms that transcend our immediate perception, spanning multiple temporal dimensions. This exhibition marks the inception of GATHER, Fall River’s innovative cultural initiative that converges design, manufacturing, and contemporary art. To enhance the opening experience, Michael Silva, a distinguished bartender from Providence, introduces an intriguing dimension to the exhibition, offering two specially crafted cocktails that serve as conduits and hyperlinks to the artistic narrative.
7 PM | ON THE OTHER SIDE – DINNER-PERFORMANCE
BY SÓNIA ALMEIDA & ANDRÉ E. TEODÓSIO WITH CHEF ROBERT ANDREOZI
PORTUGALIA MARKETPLACE | 489 Bedford St
Ticketed event with limited capacity.
Commissioned by FABRIC, “On the other side” is an installation-performance-dinner at Portugalia Marketplace. The exquisite delicacies on the table, mastered by Chef Robert Andreozi, will go hand in hand with the nonlinear visual works of Sonia Almeida and the somatic sharings of André e. Teodósio.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14
10 AM – 6 PM | OPEN STUDIOS FALL RIVER
Multiple Locations
Free admission.
Open Studios is an initiative developed by the Fall River Arts & Culture Coalition (FRACC), designed to invite the city and its creative individuals, spaces, and practices into a collaborative experience. There’s no set itinerary, allowing participants to arrange their schedules based on their availability and personal interests. Each location will also curate its own unique activities and offerings.
Narrows Center for the Arts | 16 Anawan Street
Smokestack Studios |192 Anawan St., Building 6, 5th floor
Greater Fall River Art Association | 80 Belmont Street
Little Miss Art | 28 Anawan Street
FR MoCA| 44 Troy Street
Viva Maker Shop | 333 South Main Street
Craftyish | 28 Anawan Street
The Ignition Space | 341 South Main
SoCo Art Lab | 145 Globe Street
Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery | 777 Elsbree Street
Shane Landing LLC Studios | 104 Anawan Street
1 PM | UNFIXED CONCRETE IDEALS – GROUP EXHIBITION
ALLYSON VIEIRA, ANDY GRAYDON, ANSSI TAULU, BEN SLOAT, BRIAN UNWIN, CANDICE IVY, GABO CAMNITZER, ISAIAH “PROPHET” RAINES, JENNIFER BARROWS & BRENDAN MCGUIRL, JERRY MISCHAK, JIA-JEN LIN, JIM RICKS, KATARINA BURIN, MARIA LALOU & SKAFTE AYMO-BOOT, RON LAMBERT, TRACEY SNELLING & ARTHUR DEBERT, TRISOMY 9
FALL RIVER GOVERNMENT CENTER | 1 Government Ctr.
Free admission.
Opening event: Doors open at 1 PM and entrance is free.
Visiting: The exhibition will be open through Nov 18th, on Fridays (4 – 6 PM) and Saturdays (11 – 6 PM)
This exhibition delves into the inherent paradoxes within concrete, examining its material attributes and diverse applications. It scrutinizes the dichotomy between concrete’s adaptable fluidity and unyielding solidity, while also delving into its role in constructing spaces driven by a spectrum of agendas, spanning from utopian and modernist ideals to oppressive and divisive contexts. Originally displayed at Boston City Hall, located a short distance from Boston Government Center, the exhibition now finds its home at Fall River Government Center, another architectural gem from the Brutalist era.
5 PM | REPOSE – PUBLIC ART
ALLYSON VIEIRA | BRISTOL COMMUNITY COLLEGE – FALL RIVER CAMPUS | 777 Elsbree St.
Opening event: 5-7pm, entrance is free. Access through Parking Lot 12.
Visiting: The sculpture will be installed at Bristol Community College’s pond through Nov 11th. Visitors may see it during Campus open hours.
In Repose, a new public art project commissioned by FABRIC for the Bristol Community College Campus, seemingly shoddily piled sandbags, upon closer look, evoke the bodies of reclining figures lying next to a pond. Sandbags, when hastily stacked in preparation against impending flooding, are intimately associated with disaster preparation. Though they are made of the very materials used as defense in an emergency, Vieira’s bodies appear passive, unconcerned, and languid. Repose could also be read as re-pose: to change one’s position. She asks: What stance do we take in relation to this emergency?
7 PM | GISELA JOÃO – FADO CONCERT
PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE ZEITERION PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
BRISTOL COMMUNITY COLLEGE – MARGARET L. JACKSON ARTS CENTER, 777 Elsbree St.
Ticketed event. Doors open at 7 PM.
Gisela João is a Portuguese Fado singer and songwriter of the new generation. Born in Barcelos, Portugal, she is a central figure and one of the most important interpreters in the History of Portuguese music. With a constant presence on national and international stages, electrifying and unforgettable performances, Gisela is an iconic model for contemporary Fado.
