RISD Sculpture Triennial 2026, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you, to open October 22

Show dates: October 23–November 1, 2026 
Opening: Thursday, October 22, 6–7:30 pm with performances by CHOO-CHOO and Elise Wunderlich
Location: Rhode Island School of Design, Woods-Gerry Gallery, 62 Prospect Street, Providence, RI 
Artist Talk: Jim Drain, Tuesday, October 27, 6:30 pm

PROVIDENCE, RI — October 5, 2026 — Rhode Island School of Design’s Sculpture department presents For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you, RISD’s 2026 Sculpture Triennial, an exhibition simultaneously celebrating RISD’s 150th anniversary and the Sculpture department’s 125th anniversary. 

Curated by Mari Spirito, RISD faculty member and curator and director of Protocinema, and organized by artist and Sculpture Department Head Heather Rowe, the exhibition brings together work by 17 RISD Sculpture alums, with work or affiliations spanning almost four decades. Titled after a well-known line in Walt Whitman’s 1855 poem Song of Myself, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you proposes that living life is a form of art and draws interconnecting networks together in unison with exhilaration. Amplifying sculpture as an unfixed discipline and leaning away from anxious predictions toward the inevitable entropic, For every atom… is an open-ended project tracing the lines of influence, innovation, and interdisciplinary exchange that have emerged from the department and will continue to shape future generations. 

Artworks alight on three primary themes or constellations of ideas, the first of which is motion, migration, and governmental abuse of power. abdelghani alnahawi’s (23 MFA) new sculptures made of found, sun-bleached wood and wire are shaped by the conditions in which they were formed. Coiled, contained, and carried from Dubai, they will now be freed to “walk” around the gallery’s 19th-century interiors. A Terrible Something Is Destroying the Beautiful Nothing, 2017, a stop-motion animation by Bobby Anspach (17 MFA), reflects the late artist’s deep commitment to fighting the corruption behind the global environmental crisis and cultivating human connection. Erica Enriquez (19 BFA) makes stage props of cardboard and tinfoil and performs with her band CHOO CHOO, named in honor of her feelings of independence and mobility afforded by the US railway system. Aryana Polat’s (21 BFA) new installation uses the visual language of an archaeological museum didactic panel, charting “structures of myth,” mysticism, landscape, and global extractivism in clay reliefs, found photos, and a video of the artist pissing on a manhole cover in an abandoned supersonic anti-aircraft missile launch site. A steel mechanical flower, Haircut-induced Error Fever, 2026, by Arete Xu (26 MFA) attempts to reconcile the symbolism of poppies in both the nation-founding mythologies of ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) and China’s Opium Wars.

The second theme addresses class, labor, immiseration, and political alienation. Carla Edwards’ (04 MFA) Untitled, 2014, reconfigures standard American flags. Her Flag Series—inspired by protest actions taken with the flag, traditions of quiltmaking, and abstraction—reclaims the American flag as something personal and of the moment. The Privileged Plebeian, 2014, by Gail Dodge (15 MFA) is an eight-foot absurdity of white-gloved hands reaching from dainty boots to represent the bodily sensation of striving, aspiring, wanting, and being in the position to want, as these feelings relate to class. Eckhaus Latta’s Mike Eckhaus (10 BFA) and Zoe Latta (10 BFA), are exhibiting five pieces from their Autumn/Winter 2026 fashion collection experimenting with everyday, casual garments and unconventional materials. Expectation Area 405, 2024, by Stephanie J. Williams (07 MFA), a sculpture suspended from the ceiling, resembles corporeal carnage despite being constructed of tubes and plastic in place of bodies. It points to the contradictions in which animal treatments and mutations are and are not accepted within society. Sunshines in Clear Containers, 2022, a video by Elise Mollie Williams (25 MFA), meditates on marginalization, anthropocentrism, familial bonds, labor, and violence through the lens of Niambia capensis, a species of terrestrial isopod found in Africa and North America. Andrea Zittel (90 MFA), took four years off from public life intended to push back against unchecked labor and production, will participate with a reading alcove of books dedicated to creative ways of living with available resources that recalls her A-Z Time Tunnel: Time to Read Every Book I Ever Wanted to Read, 2000.

The third theme reflects on life, death, and interconnectedness. This One Goes Out to the One I Love, 2026, by Bowie and Jeff Barnett-Zunino (09 MFA SC, 06 MFA PH), is an image of the artists’ daughter with a 45 rpm jukebox created to memorialize the unexpected loss of a dear friend. In an attempt to fend off their bones being misgendered after death, Ralph Skunkie Davis (23 BFA) casts an array of hormone injections and nightlife detritus for their installation Future Fossils, 2023–26, complicating the perception of transsexual and non-normative bodies. Elise Wunderlich’s (16 BFA) new installation and durational performance from her ongoing series Paranormal Investigator employ conspiracy and pseudoscientific technologies, paranormal conjuring, and comedic magic show to explore the haunting and mercurial qualities of memory. Jim Drain’s (98 BFA) Ebay Doll in a Vortex, 2012/2026, is a makeshift figure reduced to fragments, tied bits of fabric as remembrances of those lost, suggesting a vortex of energy. Drain also contributes MEMBRANE, 2020, eight repurposed aluminum folding chairs, sculptures woven with paracord and macrame yarn, that visitors are invited to sit on. Harrison Fishman (19 BFA), known for his HBO series Neighbors, shows videos Moon Hoax and The Big Parade, both 2021, along with an episode of Neighbors from season 1, 2026, which all portray the pain and brokenness of humanity with off-the-hook humor and tenderness. A 15-minute preview of Aligned by the Sun—a forthcoming project by Lauren Was (04 MFA) and Adam Eckstrom collaborating as Ghost of a Dream with artists around the world, in each of the 193 UN member states, as well as 32 (so far) non-UN nations and territories—brings people together through a shared experience of transcending language, politics, and geography: witnessing the setting sun wherever they are from.

For every atom … exists in a world in which artistic categories, geopolitical boundaries, and societal norms are never stable. It aims to build understanding and empathy across a wide range of lived experiences so that we might all live together with joy and ease.

Special thanks to faculty and staff in RISD Sculpture, Fine Arts, Institutional Advancement, Campus Exhibitions, the Center for Arts & Language, and to all of the external collaborators who made this exhibition possible—including the Bobby Anspach Foundation; Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; HBO Max; and Sprüth Magers Gallery, Berlin/New York.

High-resolution images with caption information can be found here.

About Rhode Island School of Design
RISD (pronounced “RIZ-dee”) is a creative community founded in 1877 in Providence, Rhode Island. Today, we enroll 2,577 students hailing from 60 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:
Danielle Mancuso
Associate Director, Public Relations / RISD
dmancuso@risd.edu
401 454-6334