A showstopper of a mural in downtown Providence celebrates the city’s history as a haven for the LGBTQ+ community, the many theaters that once called it home, and a bustling Chinatown district that flourished through the 1950s. Created by Los Angeles-based artist Lauren YS, the “Empire Rising” mural was a collaboration between the city’s department of art, culture and tourism, and The Avenue Concept, debuting just in time for PVDFest last September. As he started researching the area, Nick Platzer, the mural program manager at The Avenue Concept, says those three themes kept reemerging: the area’s rich LGBTQ+ heritage, its ties to Chinese-Americans and the many theaters that served as safe spaces for both communities. “That was the fascinating thing for me, to start putting all these puzzle pieces together and think, ‘Wow, these three seemingly unconnected themes and topics actually have a lot of interconnectivity,’” he says. The themes also resonated with the artist, a queer Asian-American who spent a semester studying at Brown University and RISD in 2016. The mural came together within a quick timeframe — four months as opposed to the usual year or more needed for planning a large-scale work, Platzer says. “People think these murals just pop up overnight, and that there’s not much to it, but there’s so much behind-the-scenes work that happens before we even start thinking of artists.” The mural is at 40 Snow St., just a block over from where Providence’s Chinatown was on Empire Street, and the parking lot serves as a main stage during the city’s annual Pride celebration. theavenueconcept.org
Above, from left to right:
This figure alludes to Perry Watkins, the first Black scenic designer on Broadway, who hailed from Providence. The “Port Arthur” on the fan celebrates the former Chinese restaurant and dancehall.
Incorporating modern elements of drag, this figure is based on ancient Chinese opera stars, many of whom were men portraying female characters…