Artists Paul Richmond and Briden Schueren visited Colgate University as part of their “Queertopia” project from April 6 to 10. Hosted by Colgate LGBTQ Initiatives, the 2026 Spring Queertopia involved numerous events: a documentary screening on Richmond and Schueren’s experience at Colgate in 2024, figure drawing workshops and an SGA brown bag event. The weeklong Queertopia series culminated in a pop-up exhibit at Pink Haus, where students purchased paintings and spent time with Richmond and Schueren.
Richmond and Schueren launched Queertopia in 2023 with a collaborative mural that illustrated queer joy. They hosted the first event in California, where Richmond and Schueren created 72 paintings in seven days. All the paintings sold and the proceeds went to the Trans Lifeline and Trans Youth Equality Foundation.
Their Queertopia project only grew from there. What does queer joy look like to you? How would you express this idea with a photo? How about with a quote? These are some of the questions Richmond and Schueren ask students across the country, turning their photo submissions and quotes into paintings. Their artworks are on sale in pop-up exhibits across different locations and universities, with all proceeds going to a queer charity that the students vote on. This event allows individuals to participate in queer activism by sparking engaging conversations and connections to support the LGBTQ+ community.
During the pandemic, Richmond and Schueren started an online art class called “Redraw Masculinity.” The classes challenge traditional notions of gender roles through art and open dialogue, encouraging participants to explore what it means to be masculine in a queer context. Richmond described the class in greater detail.
“This class is our special thing that we always like to do together because it’s figure drawing, but it’s also about having conversations about gender and identity,” Richmond said. “It’s an opportunity for the students to see two very different examples of masculine ideas – being a cis person and being a trans person. This class also involves not just sitting there posing, but actually talking and being vulnerable and opening discussions for questions. It’s a wonderful experience.”
This class caught the attention of Professor Danny Barreto, Colgate’s director of the LGBTQ studies program, who reached out to the two artists about bringing Queertopia to Colgate’s campus. Schueren discussed the motivation behind introducing the Queertopia experience to Colgate.
“We love doing a Redrawing Masculinity class, but we wanted more than just a day class,” Schueren said. “We decided to make a whole week of it, painting portraits of queer joy, and selling them for a fundraiser at the end of the week. We came two years ago, and it turned into such a beautiful experience that we wanted to do it again.”
Sophomore Maya Guha, who helped set up this year’s Queertopia, described what she loves about Queertopia and where she sees this event’s future at Colgate.
“What I love about Queertopia is how community-centered this is,” Guha said. “We hope to bring this back in two years and make Queertopia a tradition because it’s such a special thing to have yourself painted in such a beautiful way and celebrated. I would love for another mural to happen with [Richmond] and [Schueren] because I think the community mural is the most interesting and fun part to see everybody get together.”
With the success of Queertopia in 2024 and now this spring, there is hope that Queertopia will become a tradition at Colgate.
