Julie Mehretu delivered the 2026 commencement address at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), speaking to the graduating class about the value of creative persistence and the courage to embrace uncertainty. She shared her personal journey from Michigan, growing up in an Ethiopian family, navigating queerness, and working as a server while pursuing an art career, emphasizing that such distances shape an artist's vision. Mehretu also offered an apology on behalf of her generation, acknowledging that the world graduates inherit is ecologically, politically, and institutionally broken, and that previous generations have failed to reimagine systems of progress and democracy.
This address matters because Mehretu, a celebrated contemporary artist, uses her platform to validate the radical act of choosing an artistic path in a society that often devalues creativity. Her speech reframes artistic practice as essential, not peripheral, to imagining alternative futures—a message that resonates beyond RISD, speaking to broader cultural debates about the role of art in times of crisis. The apology she offers highlights intergenerational responsibility and the urgent need for artists to engage with systemic failures, making the address a significant cultural commentary on art's potential to foster radical imagination.