New exhibit opens at State Health Laboratories’ RISCA gallery featuring Warwick artist
Published on Monday, November 09, 2026
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Gallery at the State Health Laboratories announces that a new exhibit featuring works by Warwick artist Saberah S. Malik opened on Oct. 19. The Gallery at the State Health Laboratories is a partnership between the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) and the Rhode Island State Health Laboratories, a division of Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH).
A public reception with the artist at the Gallery is planned for March 18, 2027, 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Malik’s artwork can be viewed from the sidewalk outside of the Gallery at the State Health Laboratories at 150 Richmond St., Providence. The building is not open to the public.
Exhibits change every six months. A new Call for Artists will be issued in May 2027 to select exhibitors for the 2027-28 season.
About the Artist (provided by the artist)
Saberah S. Malik’s exhibit, Water, Water, Everywhere, examines how climate change likely decimated the Indus-Valley civilization. Millennia later the region faces mass displacement and population loss by climate-induced floods. The irony of "water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink" was not lost on Coleridge then, (1798, Rime of the Ancient Mariner), nor should it be wiped from our collective conscience now, when water has increasingly become a weapon of extinction. With ongoing destitution of Pakistan's 2022 mega-flood victims, hand-embroidery partnerships with affected women became a meditative healing process, as mirrors, traditionally believed to thwart evil spirits, are also manifest harbingers of hope.
A Pakistani American textile artist, Malik synthesizes graphic and industrial design education with a cultural passion for textiles, facilitating national, and international exhibiting, and teaching shibori and dimensional cloth throughout the United States and Pakistan. Her work resides in academic, institutional, and corporate collections in Turkey and Massachusetts. Recent residencies include Wassaic Project, N.Y., and the Studios at MASS MoCA. Awards include grants from Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA), and MacColl Johnson Fellowships, and awards of excellence from Surface Design Association and Handweavers Guild of America. Malik resides in Warwick.
This work is supported in part by a grant from RISCA, through an appropriation by the R.I. General Assembly, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
saberahmalik.com
About Us
Gallery at the State Health Laboratories is a partnership with R.I. State Health Laboratories, a division of R.I.’s Department of Health (RIDOH), and RISCA, to promote outstanding exhibitions by artists living and working in Rhode Island. The gallery presents works that salute the intersection of art, science and innovation. It is funded by Rhode Island’s Public Art Law, which mandates that one percent of all state capital construction and renovation funds be allocated to the acquisition of works of art to be placed in public places. Through this program, the state recognizes that “public art creates a more humane environment: one of distinction, enjoyment and pride for all citizens.”
The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts is a state agency supported by appropriations from the Rhode Island General Assembly and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. RISCA provides grants, technical assistance and staff support to arts organizations and artists, schools, community centers, social service organizations and local governments to bring the arts into the lives of Rhode Islanders.