Welcome to the RISD Museum 2022-23 Year in Review, a summary of our activities for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023. This document is just one of the many ways we measure and summarize our work, and we welcome your feedback.

This year our in-person attendance was just shy of 120,000, rebounding to 97.5% of our pre-Covid numbers. This number included several peak attendance days and weeks that exceed recent pre-Covid numbers, and it is all thanks to the continued support of our wonderful visitors, as well as an enormous amount of care and dedication on the part of our staff.

We opened 12 new exhibitions and installations, offering new interpretation and research developed in partnership with faculty, students, local artists, and community members. These included Take Care, which was curated by RISD Museum staff members of the Climate Emergency Sustainability (CES) Task Force, and Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Disability, which considered how disability and illness are embodied and experienced, and how they have been represented by artists and deployed as visual tropes.

Behind the scenes, we prioritized projects to increase access to the collection, including migrating our entire digital database into a new Digital Asset Management System, and photographing and cataloging areas of our collection that had previously received little attention.

We also opened Art and Design from 1900 to Now, a new presentation of the RISD Museum’s modern and contemporary collection across four gallery spaces. This presentation was developed through partnerships between staff, students, teachers, and many of the artists whose work is on view. We started from a place of asking questions, engaging in conversations, and listening. The resulting galleries draw connections across perspectives, cultures, and media, highlighting diverse voices and responding to current issues.

We forged new partnerships to strengthen our service to the community, including partnering with Apprenticeship RI to design, launch, and manage a federally-recognized apprenticeship program with our digital initiatives team. We also strengthened existing partnerships, such as our ongoing work with the Partnership for Providence Parks (P3) program in conjunction with Providence Parks and Recreation. This year we welcomed four local recreation centers for gallery activities and conversations.

Once again, we thank our community and supporters for helping to usher the museum through these difficult few years. We are thrilled to continue to share our collections, perspectives, and curiosity with you.