Searching for Peace at Home

The Newport Art Museum was founded in 1912 on the belief that arts and culture have the power to bring diverse groups of individuals together, which ultimately promotes civic engagement and strengthens the social fabric of our communities. This core idea continues to inform the Museum’s direction today, and creates opportunities for engaged conversations and important connections provoked by the art on the walls. 

The Newport Art Museum’s current exhibition of works by photojournalist, activist, and women’s rights advocate Donna Ferrato entitled “Donna Ferrato: Selections from ‘Living with the Enemy”, offers such an opportunity. The exhibition candidly documents women’s stories and the impacts of domestic abuse, work that has ignited decades of advocacy work for survivors of domestic abuse and women’s rights. Donna Ferrato’s ongoing work captures the individual strength of the women she comes to know while confronting viewers with the undeniability of the human dimension to a far-reaching problem. Ferrato’s images create an opening for dialogue, and compel us to move beyond voyeurism and pity to empathy, education, advocacy, support and healing. 

Together with the Women’s Resource Center, the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, exhibiting artist Donna Ferrato, Newport Art Museum Senior Curator Francine Weiss, and a local survivor of domestic abuse and member of SOAR (Sisters Overcoming Abusive Relationships), the Newport Art Museum invites you to a community conversation to discuss the realities of domestic violence locally, the warning signs, resources available to, challenges for victims, and how the pandemic has impacted this often invisible trauma.

This important conversation will be moderated by reporter Antonia Ayres-Brown of The Public’s Radio.

Registration is required to receive Zoom link, which will be send directly to registrants on March 16.

Content Warning: The photographs that will be shared during this event depict domestic violence and are at times graphic, and occasionally involve children. Some may find the photos upsetting.

Donna Ferrato, Exhibiting artist, photojournalist, women’s rights activist

Donna Ferrato is an internationally acclaimed photojournalist known for her groundbreaking documentation of the hidden world of domestic violence. Her seminal book Living With the Enemy (Aperture, 1991) went into four printings and, alongside exhibitions and lectures across the globe, sparked a national discussion on sexual violence and women’s rights. In 2014, Ferrato launched the I Am Unbeatable campaign to expose, document, and prevent domestic violence against women and children through real stories of real people.

Ferrato has contributed to almost every major news publication in the country, and her photographs have appeared in nearly five hundred solo exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide. She has been a member of the Executive Board of Directors for the W. Eugene Smith Fund and was president and founder of the non-profit Domestic Abuse Awareness Project (501-c3). She has been a recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Grant, the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Outstanding Coverage of the Plight of the Disadvantaged, the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, the Missouri Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service in Journalism, Artist of the Year at the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Look3 Insightful Artist of the Year. In 2008, the City of New York proclaimed October 30 “Donna Ferrato Appreciation Day,” and in 2009, she was honored by the judges of the New York State Supreme Court for her work advancing gender equality. In2020, Ferrato was chosen as one of the Hundred Heroines by the British Arts foundation, Hundred Heroines.

Her new book, Holy, published in 2020 by powerHouse Books, is a call to action. It proclaims the sacredness of women’s rights and their power to be masters of their own destiny.

Tonya King Harris, Executive Director, RI Coalition Against Domestic Violence

Tonya King Harris is a lifelong resident of Rhode Island who has decades of experience working to empower others, build relationships, and bring people together. She believes that diversity is our strength and that being kind and patient with one another is essential to creating a culture of respect. Prior to joining the RICADV, Tonya served as the executive director of the Center for Mediation & Collaboration RI. She also held leadership roles at the Providence Black Repertory Company, the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) of Rhode Island, and the YMCA of Greater Providence. Earlier in her career, Tonya served as an officer of the Providence Police Department for twenty years, and she holds a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from Roger Williams University. An experienced mediator and conflict resolution trainer, she has used her skills to train police officers and public officials in South Africa and throughout RI. 

Jessica Walsh, Executive Director, Women’s Resource Center

Jessica Walsh recently became the Executive Director of the Women’s Resource Center after having served the organization for 17-years. Under her leadership with Health Equity Zone, the WRC has become a nationally recognized leader in evidence-informed prevention practices that prioritize health equity as a prevention strategy. Walsh has successfully led local efforts improving transportation, food access, education, innovation and economic opportunity, green space and parks, arts and culture, and physical and emotional health.

Walsh co-facilitates a national Community of Practice related to health equity, working with experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and supporting project officers and evaluators from ten states. She has developed curriculum and facilitated trainings for domestic violence professionals in other states, and she has been widely published. This includes a 2017 research feature in the Prevention Institute, a national publication, as well as local and state publications to include the Newport Health Equity Zone Needs Assessment Report (2016) and the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s Our Future Depends on Preventing Domestic Violence (2016).

Cali, survivor of domestic violence, member of SOAR

Antonia Ayres-Brown, Newport Bureau Reporter for The Public’s Radio

Antonia Ayres-Brown spends her days covering issues and stories that impact the lives of Newport’s year-round residents, with a focus on inequities that persist locally. Before joining The Public’s Radio in June 2020, Antonia reported on politics and policy for the Chicago Tribune. She graduated from Yale University, where she studied Human Rights and American Studies.

Image credits:

Hero image:

Margo left her abusive husband with her daughters so they wouldn’t grow up thinking abuse was normal. Marin County, CA, 2011. Archival pigment print. Gift of Susan Knowlton, 2020.006.002

Thumbnail image:

Janice “Living With The Enemy” Boulder, CO, 1984. Archival pigment print. Gift of the Rybicki Family, 2020.004.001