Rich with Love Closing Reception and Award Ceremony

Please join us for the closing reception and award ceremony (RSVP here) for Rich With Love: A Decade of Remembrance, an exhibition in partnership with the Bowie State University-University of Maryland Social Justice Alliance. As both campuses approach ten years since the loss of 1st Lt. Richard W. Collins III, this exhibition honors Lt. Collins’ life, legacy, and humanity while creating space for collective reflection on love, loss, justice, belonging, and remembrance. Too often, acts of racial violence reduce individuals to headlines, statistics, or symbols. This exhibition includes artworks which resist that erasure by centering the fullness of life, memory, and human connection. Rich with Love is both a remembrance and an invitation, an interrogation of how we bear witness to violence without allowing it to define the lives taken, and how art can function as a tool for healing, truth-telling, and social transformation.

The exhibit takes inspiration from "Rich with Love: A Mini-Documentary on 1st Lt. Richard W. Collins III", which can be watched here on YouTube and in the gallery during the exhibition. The artworks in this exhibition were contributed by community members from Bowie State University, the University of Maryland, College Park, and beyond.

As part of this exhibition, the selection committee, composed of representatives from the Collins family, Bowie State University, and the University of Maryland will select three pieces to receive a cash award: $500 for first place, $350 for second place, and $200 for third. The award winners will be announced at the closing reception on Thursday, December 10.

Rich with Love will be on view from October 15 to December 12, 2026, and it features Isabella Akilo, Tracy L. Barwick, Dr. Cristophoros Allen Beck, Taylor Brown, Charles W. Clark, Demere Coker, Laurine Dzossou-Mawule, Stevener Gaskin Jr., Diana Gonzales, Susan Harkins, Isabella Harvey, Micah Harvey, Alexis Hunter, Kate Izsak, Joshua Lee, Leah F. Lubin, b.a. medina, Elaine Rudder, Leon Timbo, Art Vidrine, Toni Pierce Webb, Ishtaire Worthy, Cadets from the University of Maryland, Bowie State and University of Maryland Students, Faculty, and Staff.