Rhode Island School of Design Launches “It Starts with a Question,” an Interview Series Featuring President Crystal Williams and a Diverse Array of Creative Guests

The video series will explore emerging issues in arts, culture, and higher education, and reflect RISD’s role as a nexus of innovative ideas, where global perspectives are welcomed, celebrated, and shared. 

PROVIDENCE, RI – October 6, 2025 – Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is pleased to announce the launch of It Starts with a Question, a new video interview series hosted by President Crystal Williams. The series features Williams in conversation with thought leaders, art and design luminaries, and other notable creatives and changemakers. Rooted in curiosity, these conversations touch on the lived experiences of each guest that shape their perspectives and growth as they explore and reflect upon the world around them. The title of the series illustrates RISD’s approach to inspiring young creatives and the way that curiosity generates new ideas, inspiration, and growth.

Season 1 launches with Williams in conversation with acclaimed visual artist, filmmaker, and RISD alum RaMell Ross, known for his potent exploration of the Black experience in the American South. Ross earned his MFA in Photography at RISD and is best known for co-writing and directing an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel, The Nickel Boys, a project that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2025. He currently serves as an associate professor of visual art at Brown University. This conversation and future episodes can be found on RISD’s YouTube channel.

Williams became RISD’s 18th president in spring 2022. To usher in her tenure, RISD held a forward-thinking symposium that built on an idea she discussed in her inaugural address: “We seek to amplify, evolve, cultivate, engage, and connect with the world’s most promising and impactful creative people.” This theme acts as a framework for dreaming about RISD’s future and a guiding structure for It Starts with a Question. With each conversation, the series will explore emerging issues in arts and culture as well as higher education and reflect RISD’s role as a nexus of innovative ideas, where global perspectives are welcomed, celebrated, and shared. 

“Artists, designers, and creative entrepreneurs transform the world. Through art, we influence the narratives that drive human belief and behavior; and through design we define how our lives function,” says President Williams. “As a poet, I believe it is crucial to interrogate the self and the world around us. Through dialogue, we come to better understand each other—our needs and desires and dreams—and, in so doing, to make vital connections, unearth dynamic possibilities, and move toward each other with grace.”

Williams will engage with a wide range of creative thinkers, including RISD alums and honorary degree recipients. Other guests scheduled to appear this season include Cuban-born artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons, a 2025 RISD Honorary Degree recipient whose practice combines photography, painting, sculpture, film, video, and performance; mixed-media artist, RISD alum, and Honorary Degree recipient Rose B. Simpson, whose work engages ceramic sculpture, metals, fashion, performance, music, installation, writing, and custom cars; and celebrated graphic novelist and RISD alum Brian Selznick, author and illustrator of many books for children, including The Invention of Hugo Cabret, winner of the Caldecott medal and basis for the Oscar-winning movie Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese. 

About Rhode Island School of Design
RISD (pronounced “RIZ-dee”) is a creative community founded in 1877 in Providence, Rhode Island. Today, we enroll 2,606 students hailing from 62 countries. Led by a committed faculty, they are engaged in more than 40 full-time bachelor’s and master’s degree programs and supported by a worldwide network of over 33,000 alumni who demonstrate the vital role artists and designers play in today’s society. 

Beyond facts and figures, what is the spirit of this community? Through a cross-disciplinary curriculum of studio-based learning and rigorous study in the liberal arts, RISD students are encouraged to develop their own personal creative processes, but they are united by one guiding principle: in order to create, one must question. In cultivating expansive and elastic thinking, RISD seeks to activate a critical exchange that empowers artists, designers and scholars to generate and challenge the ideas that shape our world. RISD’s mission, at both the college and museum, is not only to educate students and the public in the creation and appreciation of works of art and design, but to transmit that knowledge and make global contributions. Visit risd.edu to learn more.

RISD contact:
Jaime Marland
Senior Director, Public Relations / RISD
jmarland@risd.edu
401 427-6954