On a hot summer’s day on the third floor of Providence Public Library, in the Joan T. Boghassian Gallery, the bright white box of a room is functioning like a portal.
On one wall, there are shelves lined with pastel, technicolor-labeled VHS tapes—hundreds of them. In a corner, a wooden media console sits with a CRT TV playing, wicker furniture arranged around the crackling glow of the screen. Family photos and decorative tsotchkes line the top of the hutch. It feels like the comfortable corner of someone’s familial home, sucked through the warp of time and space into the airy, light-drenched gallery in the middle of downtown Providence.
“Not Just Tapes,” the art show on view at PPL now through August 15, is the first of many installations planned for PPL’s gallery in the coming year. A co-produced, volunteer effort between Ben Sisto of OPEN, Rebecca Noon of Providence Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism (ACT) and Neal Walsh of AS220, the ongoing art exhibition series at PPL is kicked off with a big swing with “Tapes.”
The upcoming series of shows came to fruition when the three co-producers found out the gallery space at PPL would go otherwise underutilized this year, and they teamed up to curate programming as volunteers alongside PPL’s “admin crew, event planners, custodial teams, and special collections baddies,” as Sisto explains.
Sisto, founder of OPEN, is no stranger to curating at PPL. Previously, he partnered with the library to present “The Museum of Who Let Who Let The Dogs Out,” a Gonzo-style sojourn into the story behind the Baha Men’s 2000 chart-topper that originated from Sisto clicking around the song’s Wikipedia page. The exhibit featured a wide range of music history, research, and merchandise ephemera.
Not Just Tapes seems to have begun in a similarly susceptible-to-rabbit-holes fashion, when Sisto was tipped off about a trove of VHS tapes at Hope Street restaurant Not Just Snacks, recalling, “I went, not knowing what to expect, and was shown a basement wall packed with tapes, all with faded pastel labels, all Bollywood and/or Hindi-language.”
Sisto made an offer for the 600+ tapes, saying “This financially irresponsible decision led me to meet video editor and recent-ish Rhode Islander Sandy Dahari. In a short time, Sandy shared cultural and personal histories, global context, accepted my invite to be part of Awesome Foundation Rhode Island, and co-designed/produced this show at the PPL.”
Why were there so many video tapes at a relatively small restaurant? Dahari explains that in years past, “Bootleg VHS tapes were often borrowed between families or rented from local grocery stores in Indian enclaves (such as Not Just Snacks!).”
One can imagine that the tapes now hanging on the wall of the gallery spent decades moving between families’ TV sets, allowing what Dahari said was “a way to keep in touch with a now distant culture, to be grounded in a particular nostalgia while navigating living, working, and raising children in a foreign land.”
At the gallery reception on July 11, visitors browsed the titles of the tapes hanging on the wall—including a mix of Hindi and some English-titles like “God Mother,” “Fun DVD,” “Hot Money,” and “Jeans”—while others gathered in the mock-living room, watching the tape playing on the TV. The supply boxes that the tapes had been stored in at the restaurant were stacked in corners of the room, with labels for masoor, moong, and chana dal from Raja Foods.
Later, Sandy and Ben moved the living room furniture aside to make way for performances from two dancers, Gayatri Kunchay and Shany Rajagopalan.
Shany Rajagopalan (left) and Gayatri Kunchay (right) performing at the Not Just Tapes opening reception. Photo: Therese Iacono Photography.
Dahari made a brief quote following the performances, saying “I used to collect these tapes as a teenager back in Jersey […] and I never thought that I would see them again.”
With a crowd of people hunkered in the “living room,” Dahari continued, “I wanted this display to transport you all the same way I was transported when I saw the tapes for the first time—and to share a bit of my memories with all of you.”
The gallery is open to visitors during library hours, and you can catch upcoming screenings of select tapes in the nearby third floor PPL auditorium on upcoming Saturday afternoons, July 25, August 1, and August 8 at 1 p.m.
As for what shows will follow “Not Just Tapes” in the PPL Gallery, Sisto calls it “a real mix.”
“In September, work by the library’s current creative fellow will go up. In the fall, we’re planning a show that’s kind of anti-obstolicense…works that center repair, upcycling, and restoration as both product-and-process. After that, inspiring works by newly arrived immigrant community members will take us through the winter, and in the early spring, Rebecca’s got a real banger of a photo show planned.”
He ends by saying “I’d name names and dates but, that’ll all come out in a short time. Just asking people to stay tuned and to support the PPL. It is an amazing resource the city can’t do without.”
The Providence Eye is proud to be an in-kind media partner of this series at the Providence Public Library organized by Rebecca Noon (Providence Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism), Neal Walsh (AS220), and Ben Sisto (OPEN).
Dana Schneider is the Managing Editor at The Providence Eye.
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