Student Voices

Curatorial intern Grace Xiao reflects on viewing artwork that embraces instability, disruption, and restlessness, making room for open interpretations in the gallery.

How do we describe images and the experience of looking at images? Student Grace Xiao reflects on the process of writing alt text for "Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Disability."

RISD student Abena Gyampo traces the history of the hypersexualization of black bodies from the early 19th century to contemporary popular culture

Artist and student Jade Cannata creates a chart describing the racial demographics of three all-inclusive resorts in locations with strong historical connections to colonialism, showing the effects of history on the present

RISD student Tito Crichton-Stuart analyzes Robert Mapplethorpe’s exoticisation of the black body and proposes potential acquisitions that could serve as counterpoints in the collection

A summer intern’s written and visual re-interpretation of the gender dynamics in "The Fallen Angel," a 1968 series of photographs by Duane Michal

Traditional museum practice has a gigantic carbon footprint. How is the RISD Museum changing its own practices in response to the climate emergency?

Digital Initiatives intern Ariel Hirschhorn explores the “Maker” field in the museum’s database to examine the collection from a programmer’s perspective

A summer intern’s reinterpretation of a 1600s still life painting as lived ritual and faith in the present

Juxtaposing Iké Udé’s photography with Sun Ra’s notions of "mythocracy" and Black Utopia, Ann-Maree Quaynor seeks to reclaim Black Dignity and Existence.

A student in a RISD course on pan-African aesthetics, inspired by a photograph in the collection, explores Black youth occupying space in movements from La Sape to Noirwave.

A student in a RISD course on pan-African aesthetics contemplates a vinyl record pictured in a Sanlé Sory photograph in the collection, and imagines the songs it contains.

A student in a RISD course on pan-African aesthetics, inspired by a photograph in the collection, envisions future possibilities of Black hairstyling.

The handmade object has a tendency to prompt memories from the craftsperson who made it. In this reflection on an embroidered purse from the 1970s, Ariel Wills and Kate Irvin are joined by maker Christina Bevilacqua for a dynamic conversation that demonstrates the narrative qualities embodied in material culture.

A student dismantles the outdated terminology and practice of “master copies” by constructing a series of copies that works to bolster underrepresented artists and subvert the pervasive presence of white males in the Western art canon.