As 220

LIVE ARTS & GALLERIES: We provide an unjuried uncensored all ages forum for the arts; every artist residing in Rhode Island has the opportunity to exhibit or perform their original work in our venues. AS220 presents an extraordinary range of activities and our unjuried and uncensored booking policy ensures that a limitless variety appears on our stages and on our walls. Live Arts venues include the Main Stage the Black Box and Psychic Readings and these venues host live music theater dance performance art poetry slams film screenings late night programming fashion shows workshops festivals and more. In fiscal year 2024 Live Arts presented over 300 performances and events with over 2,600 artists and attendance of over 15,000. The AS220 Galleries include the Main Gallery the Project Space the Reading Room the Resident Gallery and the Aborn Gallery and feature visual artists working in various mediums on a monthly rotating schedule. In fiscal year 2024 the galleries curated exhibitions featuring 135 visual artists including 107 first-time exhibitors with attendance of over 4,200. In the Aborn Gallery we also continued to intentionally curate timely exhibitions. This model is now being used to support artists and curators who otherwise would not have an opportunity to show work with a focus on projects that: engage with critical social issues relevant to and urgent in our community; present projects that bring new voices to the gallery and AS220 community; uplift artists at critical junctions in their career; and might be outside the traditional parameters of a gallery exhibition and or push against boundaries of the mainstream.

LIVE WORK: AS220 owns and manages three mixed-use buildings in downtown Providence Rhode Island totaling approximately 100,000 sq. ft. We offer affordable housing and studio space for over 60 artists on the upper floors of each of our three downtown buildings including 47 live work studios and 8 work-only studios. Each of our buildings includes a mix of affordable residences artist studios and public AS220 programming. We also provide offices space for 4 other non-profit organizations and have 6 commercial tenants all of which are local one-of-a-kind businesses. Permanent affordable artist housing has been key to transforming downtown providence into a vibrant place to live and work over the past 30 years. Our tenants are a core foundation of the AS220 community and have access to AS220 resources. They also help support the community through volunteer work.

AS220 COMMUNITY STUDIOS and AS220 DANCE are AS220s formal adult education programs. Community Studios is a cross-disciplinary arts education space and community studio comprising a Media Arts Lab Fabrication Lab Printshop Visuals & Fashion Studio and Community Darkroom. In addition to providing members access to professional tools and equipment for artistic production Community Studios has offered educational workshops from beginner to advanced levels since 2011. By providing affordable access to studio space tools of the trade and varied training opportunities Community Studios has fostered a dynamic environment for learning and making as well as small business development and production. In FY2024 it also became the home of AS220 Youth. In FY2024 138 regular members participated at Community Studios and 224 students attended 45 workshops and events. AS220 Dance hosts weekly classes in many dance and movement forms as well as rehearsal space for dancers. In FY2024 11 regular dance instructors held 320 class sessions for 1,941 students. These two programs also supported the launch of our Creative Leadership project in FY2024. The 14 Fellows 12 of whom completed the program were supported in a year-long program through which they learned about event curation being a teaching artist arts nonprofit management and creative leadership.

OTHER PROGRAMS: Other programs includes organization-wide programming such as AS220s participation in the Citys PVD Fest as well as supporting and incubating small and fledgling arts groups and other aligned startup organizations as they grow into their own nonprofits.