While in residence at SoMad, she’s expanding Life is Drag—the largest digital drag archive in the U.S.—with new works that celebrate drag in all its forms—from the spectrum of gender expression to experimental art and activism—capturing the glam, grit, and glory of a movement defined by radical creativity, resistance, and joy.

Originally from Cincinnati and currently living and working in New York City, Rampleman received her MFA from NYU in 2006. Since then her work has been shown at such venues as the Shanghai Biennale (China, Brooklyn Pavilion, 2012-13), the Chennai Photo Biennale (India), S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst) and Art Cinema OFFoff (Ghent, Belgium), VIDEONALE.16 at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, C/O Berlin, Die Fruhperle, and The Secret Cabinet (Berlin, Germany), Socrates Sculpture Park, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Smack Mellon, Auxiliary Projects, BAM, Satellite Art Show, Spectacle Theater, The Wassaic Project, Flux Factory, VOX Bizarre, The Warehouse Gallery, SELECT Art Fair, un(SCENE) Art Show, Cantor Film Center (New York), The Wexner Center for the Arts, The Contemporary Arts Center, The Weston Art Gallery (Ohio), University Hall Gallery at UMass Boston (Massachusetts), PULSE Miami (Florida), The Flint Art Institute, (Michigan), the Carnegie Museum of Art, and The Andy Warhol Museum (Pennsylvania).

Rachel recently had a survey exhibition on view at Satellite Gallery LES, as well as solo exhibitions at the cell, La MaMa, VOLTA NY (New York), These Things Take Time (Ghent, Belgium), Carl Solway Gallery, The Neon Heater Art Gallery, Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts (Ohio), 3S Artspace (New Hampshire), and an early career retrospective at CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, New York.

She has also created curatorial projects with Vanessa Albury as The Sun That Never Sets for venues such as The Frank Institute at CR10 in the Hudson Valley and SPRING/BREAK Art Show in NYC. Rachel’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Art F City, Paper Magazine, Artnet, DRAIN, Domino, eyes toward the dove, HYPERALLERGIC, Gothamist, Berlin Art Parasites, the Fanzine, Seattle Pi, Absolute Arts, ÆQAI, and LeCool Bangkok, among others.

About Life is Drag

Life is Drag serves as the largest digital archive of drag performance in the United States. Launched in 2019, Rachel has documented over 380 performances by more than 200 drag artists. At SoMad, Rachel has been the inaugural Production Artist in Residence, continuing her project in collaboration with our community of artists, producers and performers. Featuring 24 never-before-seen video portraits and interviews by visionary performers who embody the height of experimental and neo-burlesque drag, this exhibition presents the work in high definition with the opportunity for full immersion. 

At a moment when drag and the queer community are increasingly under attack, Life is Drag becomes more than a documentation: it is a collective act of celebration and defiance, showcasing irrepressible performers who challenge convention, rewrite the rules and embody the range of gender expression. 

At SoMad, Rampleman’s video portraits will be presented on individual screens and projections within a black box space alongside a video of selected interview excerpts of her subjects responding to the question “What does drag mean to you?” In this collective chorus, viewers are not only invited to witness the transformative power of drag, but also to recognize its resonance within themselves—as a reflection of joy, truth, and limitless potential. Viewed as a whole, Life is Drag is a collaborative, living archive of queer expression, resistance, and artistry.