October 2, 2023 - February 2, 2024. Listening Party - Thursday, November 2, 2023 at 5pm Fleet Library 2nd Floor, Rm 201

This exhibit is a selection of documentation and recordings from the RISD Archives and Special Collections including memorabilia from RISD performances and student musicians. From the Artistics to the Velvet Underground at Mem Hall, from Dada for Now to A Pause is Not a Break. Explore recordings as artifacts some created by RISD students, faculty, alumni while others listened to by members of the RISD community. What are you listening to, what is influencing you?

The RISD Archives holds scattered evidence of student musical groups, performances and productions (balls, cabarets, pageants, masquerades, variety shows, etc.) throughout RISD’s history. The advent of Blockprint (1955 -1968), a regularly published student-run newspaper in the 1950s, allows us to track the rise of popular music in the consciousness and lives of RISD students, with notices and reviews of an eclectic lot of on-campus and local concerts by acclaimed and little known performers, as well as critiques of recent record releases.

Special Collections has a selection of music and sound recordings from the 1950s forward ranging from the sound performances of Janet Cardiff to Kevin Beasley’s A View of the Landscape. With musical selections from Memories aux Bruxelles : The official music of the Brussels World's Fair to the animal noises of Goat Music. Many of the recordings are donations from RISD faculty and alumni.