About the artist
Over thirty years as an artist Holly Ewald has developed an approach to art making that increasingly merges her studio practice with facilitating community engagement through art. She believes individual and collective art making can develop a sense of community and when harnessed to explore and understand a shared social and/or environmental history it empowers pride and ownership as well as motivates action and stewardship. Her projects culminate with an artwork that incorporates the many voices of the community experience and it acts as a wonderful vehicle for broader exchange and a continual provocation of collective civic action.

About the original project
Creating Postcards from the Past and Sending Postcards into the Future, The Freedom Screen is one of her first projects done in Rhode Island after moving to Pawtuxet Village in Warwick, from Brooklyn, New York in 1998. This project involved Pawtuxet Village residents in a year-long exploration of local history, based on concepts of freedom. Children, parents, artists, and scholars collaborated in a series of fifteen Saturday-morning workshops in the fall and winter of 2003-04 presented by folklorists Dr. Michael Bell and Dr. Winnie Lambrecht, historian Al Klyberg, anthropologist Dr. William Simmons, Narragansett Indian Preservation Officer, Nancy Brown Garcia and performing artists Melodie Thompson, Kate Katzberg and Jason Roseman. With Ewald, each child created a collage image and text from the perspective of either a Narragansett Native American or an African American who might have lived in Pawtuxet in centuries past. The cards were mailed to village residents, who replied with images and text expressing concepts of freedom in their lives today. In early 2004, participants gathered at the library to discuss the issues of freedom raised in their postcards, including war, sovereignty, equal rights, land use, and civic responsibilities. The postcards are presented as inlays on a six-panel screen of monoprint on rice paper, designed and hand printed by artist Holly Ewald. Examples of her other projects can be found at www.voicesandvisions.org.

About the current project
Ewald has revived the Freedom Screen to help bring together Highlander and CityArts in a new exchange of ideas and ideals. She has been collaborating with Highlander 8th Grade teachers Simona Simpson and John Wolf to create postcard correspondences between Highlander students and adults from the Highlander/CityArts community. As an extension of Highlander's mid-January Peace Week, the topic of the postcards is not freedom but conflict resolution, manifesting itself in a colorful collage of peace and reconciliation on one side and a thoughtful written reflection on the other giving context to the conflict, its abatement and the artist's role in the resolution. The cards will be given to Highlander and CityArts faculty/staff for an in kind response that will be shared at the closing reception on February 10th, when the public will be invited to take part in their own postcard exchanges and forge connections with someone new via this unique mode of creative communication.

The original project was funded by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, Verizon, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, The Cranston Public Library, and Voices and Visions of Village Life (a volunteer civic organization in Pawtuxet Village). The wooden frames that house the panels were built and donated by Residential Builders.

Visiting the CityArts/Highlander Gallery
The CityArts/Highlander Gallery displays a changing rotation of exhibits year round highlighting the work of both students and local artists. It is located in the newly renovated Berkander Building in the center of culturally vibrant South Providence.

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