This event is part of a series – see below for details.January 30, 2026 10:00 a.m.
Murmurations, an exhibition of works by The Steel Yard's 2025-2026 Residents
Event Details
Murmurations Exhibition
On view in the gallery at the WaterFire Arts Center
475 Valley Street, Providence, RI 02908
Thursday, January 29 – Sunday, March 1, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 29, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
Murmurations brings together the 2025–2026 Artists in Residence at The Steel Yard in a group exhibition shaped by interconnected movement, shared space, and collective making. Working across ceramics, jewelry, and metals, the artists form a dynamic constellation—individual practices shifting and responding to one another as they change shape and formation over time.
Rooted in the residual nature of personal histories, the works in Murmurations reflect on how past experiences inform collective futures. Through material exploration and collaborative proximity, the exhibition reveals how community, process, and place guide the evolution of each artist’s work.
Featured artists: Chantel Bollinger, Dominik Cunningham, Prinshu Gautam, Kit Grindeland, Nadia Nazar, Alex Tum, David Vuong, and Decatur Foster.
Produced through a creative partnership between The Steel Yard and WaterFire Providence, Murmurations reflects a shared commitment to supporting artists, material-based practices, and the creative ecosystem of the Valley neighborhood. By bringing The Steel Yard’s resident artists into the WaterFire Arts Center gallery, the partnership highlights the dialogue between making, community, and place that connects these two organizations across the Woonasquatucket River.
PROGRAMS & EVENTS
Exhibition On View: Thursday, January 29 – Sunday, March 1, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 29, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
Artist Panel + Reception: Thursday, February 12, reception at 5:00 p.m.; panel begins at 6:00 p.m.
Closing Reception: Thursday, February 26, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
The WaterFire Arts Center gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursday until 9:00 p.m. Admission is free and open to all; donations are encouraged.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Chantel Bollinger
Chantel Bollinger recently relocated to Rhode Island after earning her Master of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico. She has worked with clay for over a decade and has participated in several residencies, including the Triple International Academic Residency Program at Arquetopia (Puebla, Mexico, 2022), Longform at Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency (2024), and the Color Network Residency at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (2025). She is currently an Artist in Residence at The Steel Yard in Providence, RI.
glazingawareness.squarespace.com
@_chanib
Dominik Cunningham
Dominik Cunningham is a contemporary jewelry artist whose practice explores personal and collective identity through the lens of lived experience. Working at the intersection of the spiritual, political, and theoretical, he uses the intimate medium of jewelry to examine how individuals relate to broader sociopolitical structures. His work investigates the relationship between the body and adornment—how jewelry responds to, conforms to, and challenges the human form.
For Cunningham, jewelry-making is a mode of engagement that balances self-expression with cultural commentary. Grounded in material craftsmanship and conceptual inquiry, his practice emphasizes the equal importance of theory and technique. While primarily working with stone and metal, Cunningham continually experiments across materials in an ongoing process of exploration.
Prinshu Gautam
Prinshu Gautam is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with ceramics. Born and raised in Kathmandu, he completed high school in China before moving to the United States in 2019. He graduated from Earlham College in 2023 with dual degrees in Studio Art and Social Entrepreneurship. Gautam is currently a ceramic resident and instructor at The Steel Yard in Providence, RI.
His work explores spatial time, memory, and identity formation, drawing from Buddhist and Hindu imagery rooted in memories of Kathmandu. These recollections form the conceptual backbone of modular, interactive installations that invite public engagement. Influenced by performance artists such as Ana Mendieta, Cassils, and Aki Sasamoto, Gautam also examines power dynamics between individuals and institutions within his practice.
prinshuceramics.com
@prinshu.studios
Kit Grindeland
Kit Grindeland (they/he) is a self-taught ceramicist shaping a life in clay after a decade working in the theater industry. They have been working with ceramics since 2021 and are currently in their second year of residency at The Steel Yard. Utilizing alternative firing methods, Grindeland’s work explores connections between natural elements and magical realism.
Alongside their studio practice, Grindeland has taught ceramics since 2023 and worked with studios at Amherst College, Anyhow Studios, The Steel Yard, The Gordon School, and an independent studio in Western Massachusetts. Their work has been exhibited locally at the WaterFire Arts Center, Providence Public Library, East Manning Projects, and Warwick Center for the Arts, as well as nationally at City Lights Gallery (CT) and The Clay Studio (PA).
Nadia Nazar
Nadia Nazar (b. 2002, Baltimore, MD) is a sculptor, animator, musician, organizer, and teacher. Raised in Baltimore County, she identifies Kerala, India as her homeland. Her interdisciplinary practice examines the residual impacts of colonization through animation, sculpture, sound, and metalwork, addressing land, lineage, and matrilineal histories.
Nazar’s work incorporates steel scrolls, gates, braids, cyanotypes, and rust—forms that echo her grandmothers’ homes while expressing the experience of diaspora and the pursuit of liberation. She earned her BFA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture and Animation from the Maryland Institute College of Art and is currently a year-long resident in large metals at The Steel Yard. Her work has been exhibited throughout Baltimore, including a solo exhibition at the Spare Room Gallery, and nationally at venues such as the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art and the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum.
Alex Tum
Alex Tum (b. 2001) is a Cambodian-American artist born and raised in Providence, RI. His practice synthesizes cross-cultural perspectives through psychologically charged sculptures and installations that address inherited violence, historical amnesia, and transnational memory. Tum’s work examines American and Cambodian attitudes toward violence, masculinity, youth culture, and fetish, constructing narratives that interrogate repression and auto-mythology.
Tum earned his BFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island College in 2025. Recent exhibitions include Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art (MA) and Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum (IN).
David Vuong
David Vuong (b. 2001, Charlotte, NC) is an artist currently based in Providence, RI, working primarily with ceramics, metal, and glass. His practice explores deep time, artifact-making, and biological processes, using sculptural form and scale to connect the human body, geography, and subconscious experience.
Vuong earned his BFA from Alfred University in 2024 and completed a post-baccalaureate in ceramics at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. He is a long-term resident artist at The Steel Yard and a recipient of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Artist Grant Initiative Award.
davidvuongstudio.com
@quantum.eax
Decatur Foster
Decatur Foster is a biologist and metal artist whose work is rooted in a reverence for the natural world. By day, they study ocean acidification and coastal ecosystems across Rhode Island; by night, they create metal forms that reflect the environments they seek to understand and protect.
Guided by sustainability, Foster works primarily with scrap metal, crafting textured jewelry from discarded brass and copper. After moving to Providence in 2022, they began volunteering at The Steel Yard, where they learned to weld and develop skills in the machine shop. An introductory jewelry workshop opened a new creative path, leading them to merge scientific inquiry with the tactile possibilities of metal.
Organizer
