What’s in the River?
Temporary, site specific mural installed in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, RI, as part of the Woonasquatucket River Greenway Arts Festival in 2019
This project was was made possible by the City of Providence Art, Culture + Tourism.
To engage curiosity about the river by revealing a world hidden just below the surface, this temporary, dimensional mural rippling across the facade of 99 San Souci Drive depicted a small museum’s worth of man-made objects and marine life. Churning about in the currents of the Woonasquatucket River, each object told its own story.
Narrative content was informed by research at Providence Public Library and in the Haffenreffer Museum at Brown, as well as conversations with Olneyville residents and professional stewards of the Woonasquatucket River, including the Woonasquatucket Watershed Council and the Narragansett
Bay Commission. Playfully illustrated, the mural was intended to represent otherwise jarring juxtapositions of objects and environment in a way that was approachable, inviting audiences to lean in and wonder about the relationships between people of Olneyville past, present, and future and the river affectionately nicknamed “the Woony.”
Curious spectators were able to scan a QR code displayed prominently at the installation site with their smart phones to access a mini bi-lingual database with fun facts and stories about the river.
Installation Site: 99 San Souci Drive, along the Woonasquatucket River Bike Path
Dimensions: 19’ x 30’
Media: digital prints applied to brick wall with wheat paste, CNC-routed wooden cutouts, exterior latex house paint
Mural photos by Erin X. Smithers
Story selections from the database…
Original text written by Keri King,
English-to-Spanish translations provided by Malki Mejia
Industrial Jewelry Molds
At the start of the 20th century, the runoff from chemical processes used in industrial jewelry production once turned the Woony a spectrum of unnatural colors. Copper and cyanide made the Woonasquatucket blue, nickel turned its waters green, and chromium cast the river a shade of yellow.
During river clean-up efforts at the start of the 21st C, the Narragansett Bay Commission found old forgotten jewelry molds in the river, reminding us of 150-plus riverfront manufacturers that for a time made Providence the “jewelry capital of the world.”
Moldes industriales para joyería
A comienzos del siglo XX, la escorrentía de los procesos químicos utilizados en la producción industrial de joyas una vez convirtió a Woony en un espectro de colores no naturales. El Cobre y el cianuro hicieron el azul de Woonasquatucket, el níquel volvió sus aguas verdes y el cromo arrojó al río un tono amarillo.
Durante los esfuerzos para limpiar el río a principios del siglo XXI, la Comisión de la Bahía de Narragansett encontró moldes de joyas olvidadas en el río, recordándonos a más de 150 fabricantes de orillas del río que durante un tiempo convirtieron a Providence en la "capital mundial de la joyería”.
Return of the Herring
"Bringing the fish back gave the people a sense of hope."
- Lisa Aurecchia, Director of Projects, Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council
Herring are a natural part of the Woonasquatucket ecosystem but dams built during the Industrial Revolution get in this little fish’s way when it tries to swim from the ocean to freshwater to spawn. For this reason, the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council and the United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service partnered to remove dams along the river and to build fish ladders.
Watch fish ladders in action behind Rising Sun Mills and at Riverside Park!
Regreso del Arenque
"Devolver los peces le dio a la gente un sentido de esperanza".
- Lisa Aurecchia, Directora de Proyectos, Consejo de la Cuenca del Río Woonasquatucket
Los arenques son una parte natural del ecosistema de Woonasquatucket, pero las represas construidas durante la Revolución Industrial se interponen en este pequeño pez cuando trata de nadar desde el océano hasta el agua dulce para desovar. Por este motivo, el Consejo de la Cuenca del Río Woonasquatucket y el Servicio de Conservación de Recursos Naturales del Departamento de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos se asociaron para eliminar las represas a lo largo del río y construir escaleras para peces.
¡Mira las escaleras de peces en acción detrás de Rising Sun Mills y en Riverside Park!
For more about this project, read RISD.edu news article Illuminating Local History