With the city’s support, Providence’s Haus of Glitter reclaimed a historic site whose 18th-century builder profited from slavery.
Photographer: Stephanie Alvarez-Ewens.
The Cities Encouraging Healing With ‘Trauma-Informed Placemaking’
Places from Providence to Parkland, Florida, are seizing on the growing movement.
In fall of 2019, Haus of Glitter — a queer BIPOC art collective and performance lab based in Providence, Rhode Island — moved into a nearly three-century-old homestead tucked into an easy-to-miss park tucked between a freeway and an electrical substation in the city’s Chad Brown neighborhood. The 1756 house was once the residence of Esek Hopkins, a short-lived naval commander and Revolutionary War figure. However, Hopkins’s less-publicized history included being dismissed from the Navy, censured by Congress, and deeply complicit in the transatlantic slavery trade.
Thus would begin a truly unique example in an emerging field referred to as trauma-informed placemaking. Over nearly three years, the members of Haus of Glitter have used the space to sift through layers of trauma — from their own histories and personal experiences, from the legacy of American colonialism and racial violence, and from the pandemic and ongoing political turmoil.