Rose B. Simpson will accept an honorary degree from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and deliver the keynote address at the institution’s 142nd Commencement ceremony. Commencement 2025 will take place at 9 am ET at the Amica Mutual Pavilion in downtown Providence followed by a community reception in Market Square to toast the Class of 2025. For more information on RISD’s 2025 Commencement and to view the ceremony streaming live on May 31, visit risd.edu/commencement.

Rose B. Simpson MFA 11 CR, whose work explores modes of empowerment and resilience that connect past and present, will deliver the keynote address. Simpson MFA 11 CR belongs to a long lineage of women from Khaʼpʼoe Ówîngeh (Santa Clara Pueblo), famous for producing blackware and redware pottery that dates back hundreds of years. In 2024, she debuted a public sculpture project at Madison Square Park and Inwood Hill Park, New York, and was featured in the Whitney Biennial. Her work reflects on the multilayered history of her home in New Mexico, exploring modes of empowerment and resilience that connect past and present, express experience and identity, and contemplate freedom and strength. She earned an MFA in ceramics from RISD and an MA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work is part of numerous museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn, the Guggenheim and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She has mounted solo shows at the Norton Museum of Art, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, the Fabric Workshop and Museum and elsewhere. She continues to live and work in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico and is represented by Jessica Silverman, San Francisco and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.