Fabric's 3rd edition took place between May 12 and 14 of 2022, under the title Where we meet, a challenge to new encounters and future spaces. It was conceived as an invitation but also as an opportunity to look at Fall River as a territory of arrivals and intersections between multiple geographies. This edition found inspiration in the diasporic aesthetics, languages and codes that shape the city of Fall River to propose a program featuring public art, music, dinners, talks and workshops.

Fabric’s program was organized around three days - May 12, 13, and 14, 2022, and navigated between three programming areas: Common Spaces, an exploration of visual arts and architecture; Dialogues, an experience of music and sounds; and A Table for many, centered on commensality and encounter. The festival presented 18 artists working in music, performance, and visual arts. It involved local cultural agents in showing, mapping, and building from the narratives of the city, its spaces, and traditions, celebrating their communities and diversity.

Fabric started with In life and in Death, Amen!, a visual and sound installation curated by Principe Discos at FRMOCA - Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art. The project included new works by Márcio Matos and DJ Kolt (Blacksea Não Maya), with textile paintings, video projections, and music creating a telluric setting that invited for encounters, listening and immersion. This edition’s novelty - A Table for many, aimed to create a temporary pop-up restaurant with performances and culinary creations by chefs and artists. The program included two sessions: the first dinner was designed by Mitchell Mauricio, a Portuguese-American chef, followed by a concert with Azorean electronic duo, PMDS. The second dinner had the format of a lecture performance where artists João Pedro Vale & Nuno Alexandre Ferreira invited the audience for a collective cooking session around The semiotics of the cod. A Table for many had the collaboration of Esporão, Obrigado! Olé and Portugalia Marketplace.

The festival commissioned three new projects and art installations for Fall River’s public space, two of them on the Quequechan River trail. These projects were only possible through hands-on and active implementation processes that brought together artists, citizens, and community members, local businesses, and policymakers, like the City of Fall River, The Friends of the Quequechan River Trial, Viva Fall River, and FRAAC. Sculpture Garden by Maria Ana Vasco Costa, a Portuguese artist who works with ceramics and is recognized for her work in contemporary tile, presented a sculpture park installed in the Quequechan River Rail Trail, near the Rodman St tunnel. Five sculptural elements create a rhythm and cadence in the path while evoking a small town or functioning as small benches and tables for communal use. Gregory Penniston, an artist living in Fall River, was commissioned to transform the tunnel under Interstate 195 on Rodman St. into a living art gallery, making it a prime space for art-making and collective expression. Under the direction of Penniston, the project invited around 20 artists from the New England art scene to create a large mural that translates the community’s multiple expressions, languages, and geographies. The mural will continue to transform as new layers are added throughout time, fostering creativity, new perceptions, and feelings of belonging. Falling River Table by Tyler Inman, a Fall River-based designer and RISD Alumni, designed a public seating installation made of eight curved sections of a picnic table. It was produced locally in Fall River at the Smokestack Studios. The curved shape of each table allows them to combine into one bending form resembling a river’s flow. This project now sits on Pocasset Street just below the North Main St. intersection, directly over the now underground Quequechan river for which Fall River is named.

Fabric teamed up with FRACC - Fall River Arts & Culture Coolition to organize Fall River’s Open Studios. Opening up to the city and its creative agents, spaces and practices, throughout two days, the 10 participating venues organized special activities and gathered around 500 visitors.

Dialogue and exchange have shaped Fabric’s presence in the city. In this edition, the Festival organized a workshop with community members, creatives, and entrepreneurs to brainstorm the future of Fall River and how art and culture, and the Festival, can be part of this transformative process. Twenty participants were divided into five groups to brainstorm the city. Later, they presented their questions, suggestions, and ideas for future projects that can imagine new common and shared spaces in Fall River.

Since its first edition, music has been a central point in Fabric’s program. This edition gathered musicians from multiple geographies and sonorities: Norberto Lobo, a virtuous Portuguese guitarist and composer; Turkish artist and musician Ece Canli mesmerized the audience with her extended vocal techniques of her debut album “Vox Flora, Vox Fauna”; PMDS presented their latest album “Caloura,” and introduce us to sonic intermissions, focused on cultural and geographical audio references from the Azores Islands; Príncipe Discos steered a block party in the Quequechan Rivel Rail Trail with contemporary dance music coming from Lisbon, represented by Nídia; The festival closed with the mystical Shabbaz Palaces, returning from their European tour, with dazzling Afrofuturist beats and poetry.

In 2022 Fabric started its Artist in Residence Program, inviting artists for a year-long residency that includes several moments of encounter, research, and production. It will result in a new commission presented in Fabric’s next edition (2023). The program started with two invited artists - Sónia Almeida and Allyson Vieira.