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Until 11 January 2026:Liz Collins, Motherlode
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum, Providence, RI, USA
In 2014, while researching what would become my co-authored volume, The Sweater: A History (Schiffer Publishing, 2016), I came across a collection of unisex sweaters featuring playful holes and loose threads that hung down in a disorderly yet intentional manner. The sweaters were handmade by Liz Collins (b.1968), an American designer influenced by visionaries including Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo, who combined artistic expression with technical mastery for their boundary-breaking aesthetic. After the book was published, featuring four of her designs in a chapter dedicated to avant-garde designers, I continued to follow Collins's career as it evolved into something quite different: an expansive textile art practice.
Collins is having a moment. Three of her works were featured in MoMA's 2025 Woven Histories: Textiles and Woven Abstraction, and more recently, a comprehensive new retrospective at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum surveys her work since her 1991 graduation from RISD with a BFA in Textiles, up to the present day. Titled Liz Collins: Motherlode, the show features a breathtaking array of objects, including knitwear, knitted and woven wall hangings, drawings, fabric swatches, manipulated textile panels, performance art videos, rugs, and even furniture. The exhibition reveals that the core principles that guided Collins as a designer are woven (pun intended) throughout her evolving practice as an artist: she combines unparalleled technical mastery with a free-spirited, one might call it punk, approach to every piece she creates. With this thread running throughout, Collins refutes the delineation between art and design, instead luring visitors into her stunning, non-hierarchical world of colour and pattern.
Entry to RISD costs $22 for adults. Admission is free afrer five Thursdays or Sundays.
Read more about Motherlode in Selvedge Issue 128, Routes.
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