sussy santana

I'm excited to be a part of Water Fire Arts Center exhibit, America Unfinished? I'll be performing Thrusday, July 30th at (7:30 pm) Update: Thank you to everyone who came to experience and participate in this performance. Your words, drawings, memories, and stories transformed the butcher paper into a collective archive of migration, connection, and belonging. I chose butcher paper intentionally, because for generations immigrants have worked in the food industry. People from all over the world have built community, and sustained their families working in carnicerías, delis, butcher shops, bodegas among many places. It became both a canvas for storytelling and a material carrying its own history of labor, migration, and survival. This interactive piece invited participants to reflect on personal history, memories, traditions, or hopes, and the journeys that brought them here. As each person added their mark, a new story started to emerge. Participants responded to others, and c...

Last week, before our session began, I watched us walked into the room carrying the usual things: laptops, coffee, tension, unfinished conversations in our heads. Nothing dramatic had changed in the space and yet… something had. I set the chairs in a circle instead of rows. A small table stood in the center with a candle, a bowl of water, a stone, and a plant. Put some music on to marked the beginning of our gathering. We took a long welcoming breath in, we exhaled and it felt like the room have shifted. That is the power of sacred space. A sacred space is about intention, it is a temporary sanctuary where presence becomes possible. I believe it is an act of self-leadership to say: This moment deserves reverence. Creating sacred space is exercising self-love and devotion for ourselves and others. It is setting something apart, even five minutes, to reconnect in gratitude and awareness. And here’s what I’ve learned about creating sacred spaces: we can design how we want to feel by being...

I’ve met so many people during my time in this state. I first moved here in late 1998. As many of you know by now, I was 21 years old with a young baby. I remember my friend Mary brought me to the International Institute (now Dorcas), and they sent me to West Staff Employment Agency. When they asked me what I did, I said I could work in an office, and they sent me to Traffic Court on Harris Avenue. I started in November as a temp filing old traffic tickets. I kept getting interrupted because anytime someone came in who spoke Spanish, I was asked to interpret. By February, a very kind woman named Anne Alexander, one of my supervisors, recommended me for a permanent position. It mattered. Not only would I make better wages, but I would be a full-time state employee with medical benefits. A few years later, I enrolled at CCRI to become a Judicial Interpreter through one of the first pilot training programs. After graduating, the State opened its first Interpreter Office of Court Interpret...

In 2025 , my work as an artist and cultural organizer focused on creating shared spaces for creativity, cultural connection, and collective care. Throughout the year, I collaborated with community partners, artists, and institutions to support projects rooted in participation, cultural memory, and access to the arts. I began the year with the beautiful closing of Arts For EveryBody , a national arts and health initiative organized by One Nation/One Project in collaboration with the National League of Cities and partners like the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine . This initiative culminated in a meaningful capstone gathering in Dallas, Texas , where we celebrated the power of art to support community wellbeing and public health. I’m forever grateful to have worked with national collaborators to bring art to our communities in ways that foster connection, healing, and resilience. In March, I traveled to the Dominican Republic for the closing ceremony of Anticanon RD...

  Presented By:   The Providence Eye Dates:   December 11, 2025 Location:   Roger Williams Park Casino Address:   1000 Elmwood Ave, Providence, 02907 Time:   6:00 PM to 7:30 PM

  Worshiping a woman came very naturally to us. After all, my family is a matriarcado, a matriarchy. My sister and I grew up in the Dominican Republic with our mother, Mami, a teacher who held multiple side jobs to make ends meet. She was smart, ambitious, and always with a plan: to do better, to make more money, to help other women. Perhaps she inherited this drive from my grandmother, Carmela, who worked as a seamstress and was known for feeding everyone in the neighborhood. I never met my grandmother, she died after giving birth to her ninth child, when my mother was only seven but I knew her through Mami’s stories. My mother spoke of her kindness, her creativity, and her vibrant spirit. Making was her gift. I know she would have loved to see us creating too.   I’m sure mi abuela was all the things I heard growing up, but I often wonder what made her sad, what worried her. As I understand it, she had nine children by the age of thirty-three; I can only imagine the toll ...