“We the Unseen People: An artist and historian explore the archives”
Exhibit opens September 3rd – runs through January
Goddard’s History of Norwich, published in 1905, presents a tale of settlement and economic progress along with biographies of Norwich’s founding fathers and their families. It’s an origin story featuring an Anglo-American, masculine-centric world.
But what of the people who greeted the new settlers? And all the women who cooked, spun, wove, raised children, and kept the farms running while the men were away? Who else lived in Norwich in the early years of Revolutionary aspiration and what can we learn from their stories?
NHS director, Sarah Rooker, and local artist Luciana Frigerio explore these questions. The scraps of paper, worn tools, and beautiful textiles reveal a much, much richer world of Norwich than Goddard shared. Objects selected from the collection, as well as Frigerio’s art, illuminate the stories hidden in the archives on those scraps of paper and help us consider whose stories get told.
FUNDED BY:
