WASHINGTON—A new exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) delves into the legacy of a longtime artist-activist community that has revolutionized the book arts. On view from April 25 through September 28, 2025, in NMWA’s fourth-floor galleries, A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making explores the Women’s Studio Workshop (WSW) as a model for radical change and proponent for marginalized communities in the U.S.
Founded in 1974, WSW has grown from a grassroots organization to an institution that serves women, trans, intersex, nonbinary and gender-fluid artists. The Artist’s Book Grant, a focus of WSW’s Artist-in-Residence program since 1981, has published more than 245 artists’ books. A Radical Alteration explores this legacy through more than 40 objects dating from 1974 to 2024, including artists’ books, zines, ephemera and archival materials.
“The longevity of WSW is due to the original vision of its founders, who developed a series of programs that support artists while also contributing to the sustainability of the organization itself,” said guest curator Maymanah Farhat. “A Radical Alteration highlights the evolution of the organization as it successfully created the conditions under which art-making and institutional support serve a more equitable art ecosystem.”
Among artists’ books on view created by more than 20 artists, highlights include Golnar Adili’s She Feels Your Absence Deeply (2021), in which archival letters and photos relating to her family’s life in Iran and escape from persecution are printed on six-sided cubes that can be mixed and matched, like a child’s puzzle. The cubes are housed in a box printed with the image of her father’s airplane ticket out of Iran. When the box is closed, it hugs the blocks, keeping them safe until the visual story unravels again.
Skye Tafoya’s Ul’nigid’ (2020), made to honor her grandmother, uses letterpress printing with Cherokee type and geometric weaving similar to a traditional Cherokee white oak basket. Ul’nigid’ demonstrates love and remembrance, allowing the artist to communicate a contemporary Indigenous voice with deep influences from her traditional grandmother.
IBe’ Bulinda Crawley’s 11033 (2022) is a powerful meditation on the experiences of Mary Morst, a Black woman sentenced to the Virginia State Penitentiary in 1912. 11033 shares Mary’s story as a convicted murderer and the mother of twin children born while she was incarcerated, with pages shaped in the silhouette of a pregnant body and embedded copies of archival documents, including newspaper clippings, letters and pardon applications, alongside a fictional text woven poetically throughout the historical narrative.
One of the newest pieces in the show, gender liberators (2024), represents the physical manifestation of an ongoing, online project by the artist Sky Syzygy. Across more than 300 pages and over 150 types of paper—described by WSW as one of the most ambitious projects they have ever published—the work gathers trans histories, especially those underrepresented in trans scholarship such as trans elders, midwestern, and trans-femme narratives.
Related programming will complement the exhibition, including a curator talk and several artist workshops. Full details at nmwa.org. The show also marks the museum’s participation in Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026, an initiative of Craft in America.
A Radical Alteration runs concurrent to the exhibition Guerrilla Girls: Making Trouble, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of another feminist art-activist collective and is on view from April 12 through September 28, 2025.
About the Curator
Maymanah Farhat is an award-winning curator, writer and university lecturer specializing in underrepresented artists and forgotten art scenes. She has curated exhibitions for museums, nonprofits and university galleries throughout the U.S. and abroad, including the Tacoma Art Museum (Washington), Bainbridge Island Museum (Washington), Minnesota Museum of American Art, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Center for Book Arts, The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar, and the Beirut Exhibition Center (Lebanon). Her publications include a chapter in the Routledge Companion to Art and Activism in the Twenty-First Century (2023). Farhat is currently a lecturer at California State University, Fresno.
About Women’s Studio Workshop (WSW)
Founded in 1974 by artists Ann Kalmbach (b. 1950), Tatana Kellner (b. 1950), Anita Wetzel (1949 to 2021) and Barbara Leoff Burge (b. 1933), WSW is a visual arts organization based in Kingston, New York. WSW has brought more than 5,000 artists from around the globe to work in printmaking, hand papermaking, letterpress printing, photography, book arts, and ceramics. Over 6,500 Ulster County youth have participated in the workshop’s Art-in-Education program. WSW’s Artist’s Book Grant program has published more than 245 artists’ books, collected by major libraries and museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Modern and the Library of Congress.
Exhibition Sponsors
This exhibition is supported in part by a generous bequest from Marjorie B. Rachlin.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is the first museum in the world solely dedicated to championing women through the arts. With its collections, exhibitions, programs and online content, the museum inspires dynamic exchanges about art and ideas. NMWA advocates for better representation of women and nonbinary artists and serves as a vital center for thought Leadership, community engagement and social change. NMWA addresses the gender imbalance in the presentation of art by bringing to Light important women artists of the past while promoting great women artists working today. The collection highlights a wide range of works in a variety of mediums by artists including Rosa Bonheur, Louise Bourgeois, Lalla Essaydi, Lavinia Fontana, Frida Kahlo, Hung Liu, Zanele Muholi, Faith Ringgold, Niki de Saint Phalle and Amy Sherald.
NMWA is Located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. It is open Tues.-Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and closed on Mondays and select holidays. Admission is $16 for adults, $13 for D.C. residents and visitors 70 and over, and free for visitors 21 and under. Admission is free the first Sunday and second Wednesday of each month. For information, call 202-783-5000, visit nmwa.org, Broad Strokes blog, Facebook or Instagram.
Media Contacts
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Katrina Weber Ashour, kweber@nmwa.org
Nicole Straus Public Relations
Nicole Straus, nicole@nicolestrauspr.com
Amanda Domizio, amanda@domiziopr.com
