First Iteration of Tangible Histories,
July 2023
In July of 2023, the creator of Tangible Histories Katherine Chong enrolled in an Art and Activism course at Rhode Island School of Design's pre-college program. She dove into the histories of two schools in the vicinity: Brown University and RISD. Katherine installed artworks on the campuses that recall figures behind the founding of the schools. She invited passers-by to interact with the artwork by tracing outlines of the images with charcoal. She presented the work in class and decided to launch Tangible Histories as a global campaign.
George III
75 Waterman St
Providence
RI 02912
Prior to 1782 (the tail end of the American Revolutionary War), Brown University used a coat of arms with the busts and names of King George III and Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom.
The edge of the seal was inscribed with:
"Sigillum Collegii in Colonia Ins. Rhod. & Provid. Plant."
It was the name of the college, abbreviated and translated into Latin, followed by the phrase "in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations."
This abstracted image of the old seal was installed in one of the archways leading into the Main Green, a historical part of Brown's campus. Through this work, Katherine hoped to prompt reflection on the original purposes of what we call institutions of "higher education" today.
Helen Metcalf
30 Waterman St
Providence
RI 02912
The figure in this panel is modeled after Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, the founder of Rhode Island School of Design or RISD. In 1877, Metcalf financed the founding of the school with leftover funds from the Rhode Island Women's Centennial Commission; the commission consisted of Metcalf and other women who fundraised for Rhode Island's exhibit in the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.
Metcalf was one of the earliest female pioneers to establish and lead an school like RISD in the United States.
Sachem Canonchet
94 George St
Providence
RI 02906
Brown University developed a land acknowledgement to the Narragansett Indian Tribe in 2021. The University's Land Acknowledgment Working Group found that before transitioning through the hands of several proprietors, the original acres of Brown's main campus was purchased from the Narragansett tribe. Land transactions in the 1700s were entrenched in settler colonial dynamics and exploitative practices. As the working group describes in their report, "the homelands, autonomy, and way of life of thens of thousands of Indigenous peoples who had stewarded these lands for thousands of years were irreparably and traumatically transformed."
Canonchet (pictured and abstracted in the installation bellow) was a sachem or chief of the Narragansett tribe during King Philip's War (1675 - 1676), one of the "bloodiest conflicts [per capita]" in U.S. History. The colonists nearly exterminated the entire Narragansett people by the end of the late 1670s.
The Working Group stated that following these violent conflicts, a system of land ownership "based on English law would be established that enabled the deeds of 1770 and 1771 representing the earlier acquisition of land by Brown University."
