2016 Project Focus: "These Words"
In the summer of 2016, we joined with the Chinese Historical Society of New England (CHSNE) to create “These Words,” an exhibition that celebrated a century of printing within Boston’s Chinese community. This bilingual exhibition, drawing on archival material, demonstrated the neighborhood’s long-standing involvement with books, printing, and reading. In addition to its scholarly and cultural purposes, the exhibition drew attention to the need for a public library in Chinatown and in January 2017, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced that library services would finally be restored to the neighborhood. The new Chinatown branch of the Boston Public Library officially opened on February 3, 2018. From that opening to the beginning of August, the branch recorded just under 30,000 visits.
The impact of this exhibition has continued, fostered additional partnerships and garnering national recognition for Tisch’s work in public humanities. A presentation on “These Words” was selected as part of the closing plenary of the 2017 National Humanities Conference and, in the spring of 2018, an installation on the Chinese communities in Providence, Rhode Island, used the Tisch Exhibition Model (TEM), originating with “ These Words” and featuring the use of large-scale digital imagery, commercial fabrications, and bilingual content, located in the public square. That project is organized by graduate students and faculty of the Center for Public Humanities at Brown.
Humanities for All and the National Humanities Alliance
Humanities for All, a project of the National Humanities Alliance, presents the results of a survey of the state of the publicly engaged humanities over the last 10 years, conducted in 2017-2018 and highlighting 1,400 publicly engaged projects. The findings from this work, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, were published on a website that describes each entry and features 50 exemplary cases selected to be represented in more detail. We are honored that Tisch College’s "These Words" exhibition was selected to be among these 50 distinguished projects.
Our partnership with the Chinese Historical Society of New England will continue with a new exhibition project focused on food, labor, and immigration, as documented by the the Society’s and the Chinese community’s extensive archives.
