AS220 is not an organization that I know well, or can even pretend to know well. It is simply an organization and a place that I stumbled upon while visiting Providence, Rhode Island, recently and it became a very brief refuge for me within the city. Oddly enough, while walking through downtown Providence, it was not the organization’s prominent storefront gallery, theatre or tacqueria that I noticed first but actually one of it’s programs, as I passed a teacher giving a pinhole camera workshop to teenagers on the sidewalk. I investigated further. What I found was a politically-active organization that is over 25 years old and boasts an absurdly diverse and thorough roster of programs and services for artists, students and audiences. But it wasn’t the uniqueness of this organization that inspired me to include it here, but rather that it represents a species of institution that has come to be a foundation for much of the art culture that defines American cities today. It seems that every city has at least one such organization, or is trying desperately to incubate one through a variety of urban policy initiatives. While financial assistance for these organizations may never be adequate, their survival is statement that their collateral impacts as art service providers is critical to ongoing cultural education and production.
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