Inspired by the current exhibition Donna Ferrato: Selections from ‘Living with the Enemy’, Newport Art Museum today announced that they will host “Searching for Peace at Home: A Community Conversation on Domestic Violence” virtually via Zoom Wednesday, March 17, 2021, 6:30 – 8 pm.
“The Newport Art Museum was founded in 1912 on the belief that arts and culture have the power to bring diverse groups of individuals together, which ultimately promotes civic engagement and strengthens the social fabric of our communities,” Newport Art Museum says in a press release. “This core idea continues to inform the Museum’s direction today, and creates opportunities for engaged conversations and important connections provoked by the art on the walls”.
The Newport Art Museum says that its current exhibition of works by photojournalist, activist, and women’s rights advocate Donna Ferrato entitled “Donna Ferrato: Selections from ‘Living with the Enemy”, offers such an opportunity.
The exhibition candidly documents women’s stories and the impacts of domestic abuse, work that has ignited decades of advocacy work for survivors of domestic abuse and women’s rights. Donna Ferrato’s ongoing work captures the individual strength of the women she comes to know while confronting viewers with the undeniability of the human dimension to a far-reaching problem. Ferrato’s images create an opening for dialogue, and compel us to move beyond voyeurism and pity to empathy, education, advocacy, support and healing.
Together with the Women’s Resource Center, the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, exhibiting artist Donna Ferrato, Newport Art Museum Senior Curator Francine Weiss, and a local survivor of domestic abuse and member of SOAR (Sisters Overcoming Abusive Relationships), the Newport Art Museum invites you to a community conversation to discuss the realities of domestic violence locally, the warning signs, resources available to, challenges for victims, and how the pandemic has impacted this often invisible trauma.
Guest panelists:
- Donna Ferrato, Exhibiting artist, photojournalist, women’s rights activist
- Tonya King Harris, Executive Director, RI Coalition Against Domestic Violence
- Jessica Walsh, Executive Director, Women’s Resource Center
- Cali, a survivor of domestic violence, member of SOAR
- Antonia Ayres-Brown, Newport Bureau Reporter for The Public’s Radio, Moderator
Content Warning: The photographs that will be shared during this event depict domestic violence and are at times graphic, and occasionally involve children. Some may find the photos upsetting.
This is a FREE event. Registration is required to receive Zoom link. More information at at www.newportartmuseum.org/events