LAND = BODY is an open and ongoing archive of community resources, collectives, and spaces in Moshassuck, the area currently known as Providence, Rhode Island. Over the course of a few months, we have developed a collaborative digital map that centers essential local organizations, such as libraries, cultural centers, DIY and public spaces, harm reduction sites, queer archives, and shelters.
As we sit on College Hill, we recognize the harm that our institutions enact and perpetuate against the local community—acts of gentrification and displacement, historic exploitation of labor, and artistic and intellectual elitism.
Looking at our map which was built with contributions from students, activists and community leaders, it is clear that the city that truly sustains us is weaved by people prioritizing the health of their neighbors, the accessibility of knowledge, and expression through art. Through this process of unmapping power structures and recentering care, we engage with the land as body, as spirit, as guide. The land is a liminal space—it is alive, beyond the destructive nature of capitalism and war, beyond limiting words, concepts and binaries.
Understanding the history of this place means grappling with the blood-stained foundation that it was built upon. This land was stolen through the displacement, oppression, and genocide of Native People, and ‘developed’ through the use of slave labor that prolonged colonial wealth and supremacy. This system cannot be decolonized, no matter how many performative land acknowledgments are made.
