Artist Liz Collins Uses Upcoming RISD Museum Show to Bolster Queer Student Community

Multimedia artist and RISD alum Liz Collins 91 TX/MFA 99 is working with RISD Museum staff to prepare for her mid-career retrospective, Motherlode, which is slated to open on July 19. Most of the exhibition has already been blocked out, but one liminal space—the museum’s rarely used Skylight Gallery—is very much up in the air. In a spring course offered through the Textiles department designed to engage students in creation and curation, Queer People/Places/Things, Collins is working with RISD students to transform the space into a cozy, inclusive retreat featuring a mix of pieces by queer-identifying students and alums.    

“The gallery needs some love,” says Collins, “and I’m drawn to spaces like that. Reclaiming and transfiguring liminal space is a form of subversion and an inherently queer strategy.”

A team of grad and undergrad students from a variety of departments is helping Collins to conceptualize the space and has come up with the central theme of “homecoming” as its curatorial vision, and the class is selecting works that align with this theme. “We all liked the campiness of the high school homecoming reference and also the idea of reclamation for people who might have felt like outsiders at that time in their lives,” says senior Cindy Li 26 ID.

With only a few weeks left in the spring semester, the class is reviewing photographs, paintings, prints, textiles, 3D pieces and works on paper that fellow students, staff, faculty and local alums submitted in response to an open call for artwork that went out in late February. “We’re also using custom wallpaper, rugs and upholstered furniture to create a feeling of home, where queer students feel comfortable,” notes grad student Mary Mitchell MA 25 GAC.

Ultimately, they expect to include about 45 selected pieces, which will be shown alongside 10 pieces from the RISD Museum’s collection, including one by alum and MacArthur Fellow Nicole Eisenman 87 PT. “Breaking down hierarchy is part of the project,” Collins explains. “Our goal is to create an intergenerational dialogue that reflects the inclusivity of the queer community.”

The basic concept for the space is not new to Collins, who has used this approach to create experiential installations in the past for such venues as the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs, NY and the New Museum in NYC. She playfully referred to Cast of Characters, the 2018 installation and queer portraiture exhibition she created at BGSQD—NYC’s preeiminent queer bookstore—as her “queer, utopian, escapist vision.”

The concept of safety, however, is a serious one and something that attracted the students to work with Collins on this project. “There have always been queer people at RISD,” says Li, “and queer spaces have always existed. We acknowledge this project as a new iteration of the work many have done before us.”

Once the selections for the Skylight Gallery are finalized, the team will block out the space using printed 3D models as well as Rhino software, which is a tool that grad Interior Architecture student Farnaz Dastranj MDes 25 knows well. They’re also thinking about programming for the space and considering creating an experimental zine for exhibition visitors. 

“The students who signed up for this course bring different, complementary skills to the table,” says Collins, “and everyone is pulling their weight. My connection to RISD continues to be a profound source of inspiration, learning and connection, and it’s a tremendous honor to show my life’s work here and inspire current students.”

Top image: Rainbow Mountain Weather, 2024; photograph by Patty van den Elshout; image courtesy of Collins and Candice Madey, New York.

Simone Solondz
May 12, 2025