ABSTRACT
The exhibition’s vision of repair “as an active process of remembering—an ongoing acknowledgement of use, abuse, accident, and/or error—that insists on forgetting the thing and its history” was our mantra throughout the course. Finding willing subjects to interview on any topic is a challenge for oral history students, most of whom have few connections to people in the community and the environs outside of campus. The bowl had been a gift from a neighbor, an “ancient gentleman, probably in his 90s at that time,” an old Foster character who had been a well-dowser by trade and lived alone with a barnful of even older stuff, including this salad/chopping bowl. Jordan Seaberry, a local artist working for the Center for the Study and Practice of Non-Violence in Providence, talked to the class about the ongoing work of repair in communities harmed by structural racism, deteriorated housing stock, limited employment opportunities, and the prevalence of drugs and guns.
