Recently, Downtown in Providence was converted to a festival showcasing the creative talents of the city.
Or, as Joe Wilson, Jr. called PVD Fest a place of “radical joy.”
Wilson, director of the Department of Art, Culture and Tourism, said the 10 year old event is “the biggest creative workforce project of the city of Providence” at a recent press conference in Providence Rink.
Over two days the event, curated by FirstWorks, featured over 60 performers and 400 plus artists on seven stages. But PVD Fest is more than a showcase of local talent. The festival provides a platform to Black artists and communities that have not always participated in and benefitted from the city’s cultural production.
The festival’s artist services coordinator, Dr. Melaine Ferdinand-King points to the city’s early cultural celebrations as a touchstone for how the city has always nurtured creative excellence. She specifically said the 1975 “Jamm in the Key Z event inspired what we are trying to achieve this year with the 2025 festival, which is telling a story and having those stories really shape Providence.”
The story Alisha Pina told on the Matheson Street stage set the tone for the weekend. The Cape Verdean identifies herself “as a curator of words spoken, written, and sung.” Pina finds inspiration in her native East Providence neighborhood and her rich melodies wafted throughout the marketplace.
The story community activist Kobi Dennis saw at this year’s PVD Fest was one that created a positive and safe space for all people in the city to come together.
“Black folks do not live downtown and so it is rare that we experience good times in a totally safe environment,” he said, referring to federal, state and city redlining housing policies. He said the population of the festival has changed since he started attending more than a decade ago. Back then, “there were few Black people,” he said. “This year with the Black Cultural Market Place the PVD Fest welcomed us, it was different.”
And it is this richness of diversity in Providence that was the organizer’s goal. “We have lots of different cultural festivals in this city,” said Wilson, “but there is no festival that brings together a cross-section of people across this city and this region other than PVD Fest.”
This story was created in partnership with Journalism New England. The writers are all Providence Eye Community News Fellows and their bios are listed here.
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