FABRIC Arts Festival is a celebration of art, music, community, and the city of Fall River, Massachusetts. It aims to be a unique platform for artistic creation and promotion of artistic excellence through a multidisciplinary contemporary program that seeks to create a new experience of cultural impact and community participation. The second edition takes place on October 16 and 17 of 2020. The festival—organized by Casa dos Açores da Nova Inglaterra with curatorship by Jesse James, Sofia Carolina Botelho, and António Pedro Lopes – features public art, music, walks, talks and workshops.
What is the urgency and pertinence right now of a festival that bridges the Portuguese and the American culture and that takes the city of Fall River as a stage for a synergistic dialogue with its territory and local communities? And how does a festival that proposes encounters, conversations, and the inhabiting and reimagining of the city's public space can happen with all the sanitary limitations?
Fabric Arts Festival 2020 is an exercise of constant imagination: it promotes collaboration between local cultural agents and the Festival’s artists; it aims to show and map and build from the narratives of the city, its spaces, and traditions, in order to celebrate its communities and diversity; it opens a giant bridge to Portugal and the Azores to present its tradition rooted songbook, presenting forms that defy and challenge fado and the identitary iconography of the country; it reinterprets Fall River as a city to walk whilst valuing its urban and natural fabric; it creates a tangible legacy of contemporary art that will transform the city’s physical and cultural spaces with permanent and ephemeral points of interest and gives hints and directions of a possible, yet unknown future.
Fabric presents artists working in music, performance, and visual arts. They’re shown in new and experimental ways of presentation, ways that will manifest themselves in city spaces inside and in the outdoors, in walls and in mills, but also online and virtually.
Fabric happens in different locations in downtown Fall River. All locations and activities will be announced soon.
Organization | Curatorship
Casa dos Açores de Nova Inglaterra (C.A.N.I.) is the local lead organizing entity of FABRIC Arts Festival. C.A.N.I. was created in June, 1982. It promotes educational, cultural and social opportunities as well as cultural and tourist exchange between the Azorean immigrant community in southwest New England and the Azores. It does so by promoting events, encounters and cultural manifestations that keep an active link between the local community and the islands, preserving traditions and creating new opportunities.
ANTÓNIO PEDRO LOPES
António Pedro Lopes (Ponta Delgada, 1981) is an independent Portuguese artist and curator.
He is co-artistic director of Tremor, a music and arts festival that has taken place on the island of São Miguel, Azores, since 2014. In 2019, he co-founded and curated FABRIC - an arts festival in the city of Fall River, Mass. As a cultural curator and agitator, he directed festivals and artistic events in Portugal and Europe, in the contexts of contemporary dance, performing arts and music, always driven by affection, the construction of a community, collaboration, the possibility of experimentation and the creation of space for the other. His projects were welcomed by institutions such as the Teatro Nacional São João (Porto), Culturgest (Lisbon), Teatro Pradillo (Madrid), Theater de La Cité Internationale (Paris), Arquipelago - Center for Contemporary Arts (Azores, Portugal), among many others.
JESSE JAMES
Jesse James(Vancouver, 1987) lives and works between Lisbon and Ponta Delgada as a cultural programmer and independent curator, combining curatorial projects and strategic management of cultural projects and artists. He is co-founder of Anda&Fala - Cultural Association, a contemporary and multidisciplinary art structure working from São Miguel, Azores. Since 2011, he has assumed the artistic direction of the Walk&Talk - Arts Festival, the association's flagship project, intersecting visual arts, performing arts, architecture, and design. He is one of the co-founders of the Fabric Arts Festival in Fall River, Massachusetts, USA. He regularly participates as a speaker in seminars and lectures and was selected for the Atelier for Young Festival Programmers in 2016 in Budapest. He has a degree in Tourism and Leisure from ESTH / IPG and attendes a postgraduate in Curatorial Studies at FCSH - NOVA Lisboa.
SOFIA CAROLINA BOTELHO
Sofia Carolina Botelho(Ponta Delgada, 1986) is co-artistic director at Walk&Talk – Arts Festival and coordinator of its Knowledge Program, organized by Anda&Fala – Cultural Association, of which she is vice-president. Since 2019, she coordinates the Educational Program at Carlos Machado Museum. She is part of the curatorial team at Fabric Arts Festival in Fall River (Massachusetts, USA). She has participated in several lectures and seminars on artistic education, the relationship between audiences and structures and cultural spaces, and the 12th edition of the “Atelier for Young Festival Managers” at EFA in Merano in 2017. Graduated in Fine Arts – Sculpture with a Master in Museology and Museography (Intangible Cultural Heritage) from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon.
Once known as Spindle City, Fall River is an industrial city located an hour away from Boston, 30 minutes from Providence, Rhode Island, and 20 minutes from New Bedford. With a population of 90,000 and a large Portuguese community originating mostly from the Azores, Fall River is also home to diverse cultures such as the Irish, Cape Verdean, English, French Canadian, Puerto-Rican, Polish, Lebanese, Cambodian, Italian amongst others, communities that chose the city as its home in the 19th and 20th centuries, driven by its booming industry.
This diversity manifests itself in how the city is organized and in the richness of the many cultural activities that have become synonymous with Fall River: a city of many bands, of large pagan-religious celebrations; a city for the Portuguese but also for the whole world.
Easily accessible by Interstate 195 – which is said to have destroyed a waterfall that gave name to the city - and the scenic Braga Bridge, the city of a million spindles is abundant in mills, mostly textile, some of which are active, while others are being restored and reused as housing units or co-working studios.
The city’s downtown increasingly displays potential to reestablish itself as a culture and arts district. There are several music venues such as The Eagle, The Narrows Arts Center, as well as new restaurants, barbershops, bars, and an event and urban art community-driven gallery known as Gnome Create. Just around the corner, Portugalia Marketplace has become an important venue for community meetings and a true haven for the celebration of Portuguese culture. Nearby, Merrow Manufacturing is reinforcing its own heritage of producing sewing machines and investing in strengthening their textile production. Throughout the area, Vanson Leathers produces unique leather jackets and accessories for Hollywood productions and brands like Suzuki and fashion-leading Comme des Garçons. Matouk’s Factory produces high-end linens, towels, and sheets for various celebrities. Additionally, a diverse group of artists, designers, and furniture makers are finding a place here to develop their own work.
WHERE TO STAY
Taylor's Pharmacy Guesthouse
203 Linden St, Fall River, MA 02720
Contact: borges_debora@hotmail.com
The Paquachuck Inn
2056 Main Rd, Westport Point, MA 02791
Phone: (508) 636-4398
The Whalehouse100 Madison Street, New Bedford, MA 02740
Phone: 339-832-3123
New Bedford Harbor Hotel 222 Union St, New Bedford, MA 02740
Phone: (508) 999-1292
Hampton Inn Fall River/Westport 53 Old Bedford Rd, Westport, MA 02790
Phone: (508) 675-8500
Residence Inn by Marriott New Bedford Dartmouth 181 Faunce Corner Rd, North Dartmouth, MA 02747
Phone: (508) 984-5858
The Dean Hotel 122 Fountain St, Providence, RI 02903
Phone: (401) 455-3326
Hotel Providence 139 Mathewson St, Providence, RI 02903
Phone: (401) 861-8000
Graduate Providence 11 Dorrance St, Providence, RI 02903
Phone: (401) 421-070
Check also:
Creative Arts Network, Borden Flats Lighthouse