Exhibits

Physical Exhibits

Visitors to the RIT Archives, located on the third floor of Wallace Library, can see plenty of archival materials and collections on display.

Student-curated exhibits fill display cases in the third-floor corridors, and the RIT Museum is prominently located near classrooms and study spaces. City of Contrast/Campus of Contrast: Revisiting 150 Years of Artistic Achievement at RIT draws from the RIT 150th Anniversary Art Show collection, originally curated by CAD Dean Stanley Whitmeyer, and features artwork created by RIT students and faculty between 1891 and 1979. This exhibit demonstrates a collaborative effort between students in Museum Studies and Graphic Design, who worked together in the Fall 2023 MUSE241: Art, Design, and Exhibition course to curate pieces from RIT Archives. Students in the Spring 2024 GRDE308 Experiential Graphic Design class visualized the curation. City of Contrast/Campus of Contrast opened in September 2024 and will be on display through the Spring 2025 semester.

On the first floor of Wallace Library, the RIT Archives Photo Alumni Gallery currently features In Her Image. The exhibit presents photography by Toni Pepe (Imaging Arts and Related Media Masters of Fine Art '08), curated by student Emma Truscott (Photographic and Imaging Arts BFA, '24). The exhibit offers a compelling exploration of identity, memory, and the female experience through a series of thought-provoking photographic works and materials from the RIT Archives. In Her Image invites viewers to reflect on the narratives and histories embedded in visual representations of women. Truscott also conducted an oral history interview series with Pepe during the Spring 2024 semester. In Her Image will also be mounted through Spring 2025.

Digital Exhibits

Three buzzards hovering over mountain labeled "Germany." Uncle Sam holding oversized paper titled "Hoover Report."Epidemics, Economics, and Elections: The Editorial Cartoons of John Scott Clubb and Elmer Messner

This digital exhibit features the work of Rochester editorial cartoonists John Scott Clubb (1875-1934) and Elmer Messner (1901-1979). Together, the lives of these two cartoonists span a century of change in the city of Rochester, the state of New York, and the United States as a whole. Looking beyond the brisk changes and innovations of their lives and work reveals patterns that still resonate today.  This exhibit was a collaborative effort between Liz Call and Jody Sidlauskas in RIT Archives; Digital Humanities & Social Sciences Librarian, Rebekah Walker; and community member and donor, Melissa Corcoran Hopkins. 

 

Tom Golisano headshotTransformative Impacts: Archives of an Entrepreneur



Transformative Impacts gives an introductory exploration into B. Thomas Golisano's rich contributions in the world of business, philanthropy, and activism.

 

The Stories They Tell: SPIRIT

Students from the Fall 2024 “Digital & Critical Curation” (MUSE 359) course partnered with RIT Archives to uncover the link between the RIT tiger symbol and campus spirit. They soon understood that within the ever-changing representations of RIT spirit, student pride in RIT was the predominant drive, spearheading every development and addition. Under the direction of Lecturer Samaya Nasr and RIT Archivists Liz Call, Landyn Hatch, and Julia Novakovic, the students worked in three groups to research, select, and design the exhibit cases as part of the sixth such collaboration between Museum Studies and the Archives.

Photograph of display case featuring RIT mascot characters.     Photograph of Fall 2024 MUSE-359 students outside of the SHED

The resulting physical exhibit opened on October 18, 2024 and is still on view on the third floor of the Wallace Library through the Spring 2025 semester. Furthermore, each student individually curated a digital exhibit to highlight their section of the show in an interactive format. Follow these links to learn about the exhibit’s sections and the stories they tell: Tiger Pride: RITchie and SpiRIT (designed by Wilson McDade), RITchie Sells His Stripes (designed by Dannahe Kuntz), and Student Pride: Written in Bronze (designed by Gabriella Smith).
 

The Stories They Tell (2015-2019)

Photograph of Alice Beardsley Interpreting for Mayor May, 1973The Stories They Tell 2
The Stories They Tell 3
The Stories They Tell 4
The Stories They Tell 5
The Stories They Tell 6

 

This series of student-curated digital exhibits are the creative end products of an ongoing collaborative program between Associate Professor Juilee Decker and RIT Archives. Students in the Museum Studies course Cultural Informatics (MUSE 359) curated both a physical and digital exhibit. Their exhibits seek to share stories of the RIT community through documents, photographs, yearbooks, memorabilia, and other items.

For more information on the process of creating these student-curated exhibits, see https://ritmuse.wordpress.com/. 

Women in an art classroom in the early 1920sWomen at Rochester Institute of Technology: The Past, Present and Future

This digital exhibit brings together three projects that highlight the evolving roles of women on RIT’s campus since 1885.

Spirit, RIT's mascot, on the cover of the RIT student newspaper, The Reporter.Spirit of RIT

This digital exhibit highlights the influence that the original mascot has had on RIT.