Signal, on view at Blue Sky Gallery from September 3 to 26, 2026, presents riel Sturchio's exploration of how spiritual practices and rituals offer sanctuary and resistance for LGBTQ+ people and women facing systemic oppression. The project, which documents over forty practitioners across the United States and Mexico, delves into the practices of psychics, witches, seers, and believers as acts of belonging. Personal rituals rupture unjust hegemonic systems, and Sturchio uses photography to reveal these practices' liberating and connective power.
The work emerged from an intergenerational search for belonging that began in 2023, when Sturchio sifted through their late grandmother's belongings and discovered quiet traces of mysticism: wishbones, crystals tucked away in the bedroom, a single gray four-leaf clover resting on the windowsill. The memory of her morning ritual echoed back, her voice carrying through the porch door, Good morning, Mother Nature! Now that both grandparents have died, the quest for belonging carries their legacy into a community of metaphysical LGBTQ+ and women practitioners. Believers are everywhere: teachers, baristas, health care specialists, and in Sturchio's case, family both chosen and by blood. Practitioners use their rituals multidimensionally—to stay sober, honor gender expression, commune with the dead, work as paid entertainers, sustain ancestral legacy, and deliver messages from spirits.
Sturchio's material process is integral to this work. They make photographs in backyards, domestic spaces, and semi-private environments, create digital negatives, and return to the darkroom to print 16 by 20 inch silver gelatin contact prints, honoring one of photography's earliest forms. The act of touch on photographic surface serves as a methodology for grief and documenting survival as a form of radical resistance. Sturchio, a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow, is an interdisciplinary artist-scholar whose photography-based practice operates at the intersection of queer phenomenology, disability justice, and the haptic archive. They co-founded Begin Collective with their twin sister Bianca Sturchio, a community-based photography initiative for people at the intersection of LGBTQ+, disability, chronic illness, and neurodivergence.
Sturchio has taught photography at The University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University, Wheaton College, and St. Edward's University, and currently works as a Specialized Assistant Professor of Instruction in Photography at the University of Iowa. Recent achievements include the Robert Giard Grant, Daylight Photos Jurors Pick, Light Work Artist-in-Residence, Film Photo Award, and the Michael P. Smith Award from the New Orleans Photo Alliance. Signal remains on view through September 26, offering visitors a chance to encounter work that honors sovereign embodiment and the rituals of those navigating normative margins.
Image: Unicorn Floating, 2026 (Detail) © riel Sturchio
Instagram 
Facebook 
Pinterest 
X / Twitter 