Soft Hold — Photo Exhibition

🗓 June 2–25, 2025
📍 Eve Drewelowe Gallery, Visual Arts Building, 107 River St, Iowa City
🕒 Gallery Hours: Weekdays, 8 AM–8 PM
🎉 Opening Reception: Friday, June 6, 5–7 PM
🎨 RITUAL Workshop: Friday, May 30, VAB E318 (Details below)
🆓 Free & open to the public

Soft Hold brings together photographs from Signal by riel Sturchio and before the last lilac blooms by Bianca and riel Sturchio—two series grounded in care, connection, and the act of witnessing.

• Signal honors LGBTQ+ and women spiritual practitioners through portraits shaped by ritual and reverence.
• before the last lilac blooms explores queerness, disability, and siblinghood through images of intimacy and trust.

Together, these works invite a slower gaze—one that lingers with tenderness and attends to what often goes unseen.

RITUAL – Somatic Workshop and Lumen Prints

🗓 Friday, May 30, 2025
📍 Visual Arts Building (VAB) Room E318, 3rd Floor
🕒 Sessions at 2–3 PM, 3–4 PM, 6–7 PM, 7–8 PM
👥14 person capacity per session. No Registration required.

Join riel Sturchio and Marisa LaGuardia for RITUAL, a collaborative, somatic-based art workshop using UV light to create lumen prints. No experience or materials needed. Participants are encouraged to bring 1–5 personal and small handheld objects. A brief meditation will open each session, followed by art making and a group discussion.

🔗 More info: www.begincollective.com