Say Their Names: An Act of Love Through Lettering with Jacques Bidon

Event info:

Say Their Names: An Act of Love Through Lettering

Tues. April 22, 6:30 - 8:30pm

Bidon Community Print & Design Studio

3 Acorn Street, Providence

When we call our ancestors by name, we push back against the forces that seek to erase all that they were, and all that we are. Say Their Names: An Act of Love Through Lettering will bring community members together to honor Black and Indigenous ancestors through the power of letterpress printmaking.

Led by master printmaking artist Jacques Bidon, owner of Bidon Community Print & Design Studio, Say Their Names will be an intimate, BIPOC-affirming evening of art-making and remembrance. Sharing food, music, and storytelling in his studio, Bidon will guide the group in creating bold, colorful relief prints to recognize and lift up free and enslaved people of color who resided in and around present-day Bristol, RI between 1680 and the Civil War.

The printed names represent a fraction of more than 1,200 people – old, young, African, African-American, Pokanoket, Narragansett, Wampanoag – whose existence has been documented through the ongoing work of Research BIPOC History (RBH). A volunteer-led project, RBH seeks to engage the public in honoring ancestral Black and Indigenous communities by making primary source documents accessible and partnering with community stakeholders.

“I believe in the power of printing to change just about anything,” Bidon says of his medium. Together with the artist – whose practice focuses on remembrance as a path to liberation – participants will use presses given to Bidon by his father to engage in acts of remembrance through community printing. Join us!

You can read more about Jacques’ artistic practice here.