Digital Commons Network^™

Lighting : An Atrium Core To Reconnect With The Sun, Quan Lei

Masters Theses

At the Rhode Island School of Design, students work so much that they treat their studio as home; the majority stay in studio past midnight, which leads to lack of sleep. How to improve students’ physical and mental health is a question demanding immediate investigation, particularly as relates to rest. According to the scientists at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) in Troy, N.Y, engagement with daylight environments increase occupant productivity and comfort, and provide the mental and visual stimulation necessary to regulate circadian rhythms, encouraging more restful sleep. Students cannot function healthily because their busy schedules remove them from the …

Wielding Daggers : The Female Uncanny, Stephanie E. Hanes

Masters Theses

This thesis document is a compilation of personal essays that analyze aspects of visual culture and philosophy. I am greatly interested in how this analysis is related to women bodies; the nude in western art has a long history of being constructed for the male gaze. This significance of the identification of women with the body exposes women in our culture to learn their own particulars for self surveillance. By looking into the mirror, what is reflected back? With these essays, I am opening myself to the unknown and the unknowable, revealing the paradox of feminist and philosophical scholarship. When …

Breathe, Iggy Choi

Masters Theses

Everything around us is interesting, but we Keep so busy we miss out what is importance. When we first get a gadget we get excited for few months, but soon we lose interest and seeking for something new and cooler. We are constantly hurt, tired, stressed, overwhelmed, but we are not aware because we are so focused on the future. We need to reset to get back on our track. We need to stay aware and remember our first excitement in order to refresh our purpose and focus. Life would be better if we step back, breathe, and notice what …

In The Marketplace, Anina Major

Masters Theses

The decision to voluntarily establish a home contrary to the location in which I was born and raised (The Bahamas) motivates me to investigate the relationship between self and place. To further explore my own migration and the emotional complexities that surface, with a desire to fabricate terms of cultural integrity and its defining influence. To express poetically the kindred ideals that resonate from home and intertwine those values to cultivate moments of reflection and acceptance. To promote encounters between past, present and future by weaving the memories of my own background and experiences, consequently unveiling a rich culture composed …

Light On : The Value Of Art & Art Education, Juri Rhyu

Masters Theses

As an international student, I have had the chance to view art education through the lenses of both the United States and Korean education systems. While Korea’s education system leans more on authoritarian institutions, rote memorization, and grades, art education in the US is equally as restrictive and teaches technical skill rather than fostering creativity. Technical skill does not an artist make. Because of my self-assumed lack of creativity, I began to go to museums and sketch masterworks in an effort to self direct creative learning. This experience ultimately led me to consider a future career as a teacher as …

Let's Get Hairy : Women, Body Hair And Stigma In Arts Education, Chaitra Bangalore

Masters Theses

A woman who is visibly hairy might be viewed as masculine, dirty, unprofessional, or as a radical feminist. There are variations on what it means to be a woman; feminine does not have to be synonymous with “hairless”. Body hair is a stigma because it is a physical characteristic that is undesirable and shamed when exposed.

Body hair as stigma can be explored in terms of creativity and pedagogy. How can creativity work to dismantle stigma? Talking about stigma gives one the chance to express themselves in a way that is exploratory, sparking new ways of understanding. Arts education already …

Play Is Everything : Materials + Play = Learning, Adeline Diamond

Masters Theses

This model making based research project looks at how various materials—produce, board games, toys and curriculums—create opportunities for learning through play. Play creates intimate relationships that are generated between the spaces we inhabit and the objects and people that surround us, focusing on cognitive responses. This paper aims to further awareness of one’s perception of play and how all forms of play create meaningful relationships and improve cognitive development, material awareness and critical thinking skills. Play provides students with opportunities to learn and allow unlimited variations on the learning environment.

This research explores various forms of play through farming, interviewing, …

What Makes A Good Teacher? : The Artist's Engagement In Public Art Education, Wenjing Fan

Masters Theses

This thesis is written in a language other than the author’s own, so its content as she developed an understanding of ideas in English may reveal both inaccuracies of grammar and indeed some misunderstanding of context and concept. This being said, the author uses the thesis investigation to reflect on her art education in China and also to report on encounters with teachers she has met in Providence, Rhode Island. So, the thesis has been opportunity to wonder about the significant role that various types of teacher (First Teacher to Fourth Teacher) play in cultivating students’ artistic ability. The author …

Developing The Cartooning Mind : The History, Theory, Benefits + Practice Of Comic Books In Visual Arts Education, Cathy G. Johnson

Masters Theses

This thesis by cartoonist and educator Cathy G. Johnson explains why cartooning should be taught in visual arts classrooms. The theme is supported by historical research, professional inquiry, child development research, and analyses of pedagogical approaches. Johnson traces the history of the U.S. comic book industry from its beginnings during the Great Depression, through the anti-comics movement of the ‘50s, male-dominated comic shops of the ‘70s, and the eventual Japanese import comics boom of the ‘90s. She uses the personal narrative of her engagement with comics as a child in the ’90-‘00s as a case study to explain the current …

Traversing Ambiguities : Rebuilding Perspectives Through Designed Visual Education, Mudita Pasari

Masters Theses

We perceive the world largely through categorizations and associations. We distill people, objects and entities into extremes. ‘Normal’ becomes a measure of acceptable. Reductionist definitions, force anything ambiguous or uncertain to be rejected. Acknowledging our biases towards these misinterpreted, shunned or ignored entities, has long been overdue. In todays world we cannot possibly continue being blind to complexity.

Can designed visual education reinterpret ambiguity and embrace multiplicity? How can a designer’s perspective help scaffold these educational systems? Can we do so by looking deep within our own practice as designers, artists, scholars and educators?

The thesis explores these various questions …

Anchored In Place : Locational Identity + New Genre Public Art, Stephanie Benenson

Masters Theses

Since its inception in the 1970s when Joseph Beuys proclaimed, “Jeder Mensch is ein Kunstler” or “Everyone is an Artist”, public art that focuses on social engagement (otherwise known as new genre public art) has been tested in a variety of formats and places. Today, the breadth of work in this category is vast and the resulting aesthetics vary based on the artist’s intentions and goals. While measuring the success of these projects remains a challenge, an examination of recent history provides us with insights that can become a tool kit for artists commencing on social projects. Once examined, specific …

Sometimes The Sh*T Stays Messy : Critical Frameworks For Arts-Based Researchers & Educators, Zoe Schein

Masters Theses

The standards by which we assess the legitimacy of knowledge production are deeply biased: resting ideologically, systemically, and formally on processes that are deeply rooted in systems of oppression. Consequently, our current body of “legitimate” or scholarly knowledge presents only a partial, partisan picture of what it is possible—and worthwhile—to know. This thesis addresses how hegemonic institutions (like the academy) rely on two central notions: (1) that their methods are “objective,” “value-neutral,” or otherwise impartial (2) that these methods are the best—if not the only—ones through which “real” knowledge may be accessed and communicated. As this paper demonstrates, each of …

Art-Integrated Pedagogy For English And Chinese Language Learners, Regina J. Kuo

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research is to identify how art-integrated teaching methodology might help learners to absorb contents more effectively than the traditional teaching methodology. There are many schools in the U.S. started to use art-integration multimodal approach in school curriculum on different academic subjects. This research focuses on the art-integrated pedagogy in linguistic language, especially for English language learners and Chinese language learners. The researcher approaches the subject with illustrating a collection of personal cases about art-integrated pedagogy used in teaching and learning environment. This art-based research produces two teaching materials designed to answer the questions that were frequently …

Creating Access And Equity In Arts Education : Strategic Partnerships For Systemic Change, Colleen C. Andrews

Masters Theses

Creating Access and Equity in Art Education: Strategic Partnerships for Systemic Change examines the diminished state of art education in United States public schools, reveals how nonprofit arts organizations supplement what is lacking in the current educational system, and offers current examples, based on interviews, to place these issues in context. A history of the National Endowment for the Arts and an examination of arts funding, both public and private, provides a backdrop for the weakened state of the arts in schools. Exploring educational policies such as No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act reveals how federal …

Imagery And Photography : Enhancers In The Learning Cycle, Dandi Li

Masters Theses

This thesis highlights the importance of visuals and photography as significant enhancers in the learning process for students of all ages. There is both scientific and anecdotal evidence that illustrates the compelling impact of imagery and photography on not only academic education, but for the personal development and growth for students. Photography is often a medium for exercising creativity and self-reflection. As an activity, photography stimulates imagination while also exercising the ability to follow fundamental principles and limitations (timing, lighting, etc.) in order to take that perfect shot. As humans, we are driven primarily by our vision as both biological …

The Creative Process : Gathering For Meaning, Charity Appell Mcnabb

Masters Theses

The creative process of visual artists is not a well-understood methodology for intellectual inquiry. In particular, there are amorphous and individual aspects of it that defy narrow categorization. These aspects, like the gathering and associating labors, which vary from artist to artist, are nonetheless fundamental to our practices. The author investigates how the creative process has been defined and how the creative process is being used outside the traditional artistic context. Artists exist in a space where categories and definitions can be abandoned, where thought is advanced through the act of making, where worldviews can be imagined, where apparent contradictions …

The Artist, The Object And The Meaning Between : An Exploration Of The Joys Of Incorporating Meaningful Objects Into Art Practice And Teaching Pedagogy, Sarah Leis

Masters Theses

The Artist, the Object and the Meaning Between begins by exploring the human motivation and delight in keeping physical ephemera, tokens, specimen, souvenirs, relics, etc. Material things can be tools to understand and interact with the world around us; a name for this is “Object-based Learning”. I use Qualitative and Arts-based research to make the case for object-based learning as a complement to digital resources. Though anyone may benefit from these practices, the focus of the thesis is the teaching artist and her opportunity to encourage in her students a rich experience of the three-dimensional in a world that seems …

The Art Of The Wilderness : A Field Guide To Integrating Art + Outdoor Education, Rachel Dranoff

Masters Theses

This thesis serves as both a comprehensive review of the fields of art and outdoor education, and as a practical handbook. Through an exploration of the definitions of art and wilderness to the pedagogy of art, outdoor, and experimental education, this thesis endeavors to make evident meaningful ways of learning. Interdisciplinary learning and multiple intelligence theory support a holistic and interconnected approach to education. Place-based and project-based learning emphasize a multidimensional line of inquiry rooted within a meaningful and personal context. The goal of integrating art + outdoor education is to design learning adventures that cultivate: creativity, leadership, problem-solving, collaboration, …

Intrigues And Priorities : Critical Thinking And Contemporary Art In Visual Arts Education, Connor Phillips

Masters Theses

This thesis looks at how arts education can respond to the context of the 21st century by focusing on critical thinking and contemporary art in visual arts education. I argue that art as a subject has the potential to educate youth beyond mere aesthetic, formal art skills. Its inherent flexibility to encompass all interests, cultures, and backgrounds makes it a truly inclusive subject and the multiplicity that follows provides students with opportunities for cross-associative and critical thinking. If utilized in an education context, it can be the necessary conduit for engaging students, respecting their intrigues, and offering a space to …

Researching + Observing + Reflecting Of Chinese And American Landscape Architecture Pedagogy : Focusing On Department Of Landscape Architecture In Risd And Bfu, Change Gao

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the Chinese and American landscape architecture education, typically in Beijing Forestry University (China) and Rhode Island School of Design (USA). By relecting back to author’s graduate and undergraduate study in landscape architecture in these two schools, this thesis provides a view of an observer and outsider instead of an experiencer and insider to look through the teaching and learning in landscape architecture. Through the voice from students and academia in both schools, this thesis functions as a platform sharing the learning and teaching experience, providing a cross-culture access to other people’s experience and as a chatbox …

Untitled, Ting Tan

Masters Theses

This is a collection of things I am interested in. Through these things I attempt an understanding of myself. They are unpredictable and often difficult to capture like clouds, trees, water, winds. This book is my journey of self discovery.

I walk in my memories. I walk in the city. There, I capture and record fleeting moments of things I love. Through this process, I give myself a chance to understand the reasons for this attraction. It also gives me an opportunity to understand why I want to find myself, and why I always want an exact answer to this …

Hear Her Sing, Da Wei

Masters Theses

Indeed, this is not an academic paper, nor really a novel or diary.

It is some words from a young soul.

“Hear Her Sing” is to explore a new aesthetic methodology of artist’s writing. Physically, it aims to approach an experimental experience between texts, images, sounds, materials, and paper form. The writing seeks for an aesthetic metaphorical printing representation of my embodied multimedia installations. The project looks for profound sensory impression of linking vision, hearing, touch and intuition, imagination; and asks the reader’s eye, ear, hand, and mind to constantly shift channels. While reading, imagination infinitely extends.

I Remembered I Am Happy, Emily Pan

Masters Theses

This journal is a collection of thoughts on small actions and repetition and getting through getting places.

I / You / They, Yolanda Lam

Masters Theses

This thesis is a journal of conversations.

Similarity In A Distance, Ran Zhuo

Masters Theses

I grew up in an interesting yet contradictory environment. As both of my parents were busy with their jobs, I was raised by my grandparents and I believe that’s where the contradiction aspect of my personality came. My grandfather was a professor of physics in a university and my grandmother was a professor of violin. Unconsciously, I was influenced by them and developed a keen interest in cross-disciplinary and cross-media subjects. The two subjects of music and physics represented art and science, emotion and reason, abstraction and concreteness, and invisible and visible to me.

My work is primarily engaged with …

Habitually, Sunha Joo

Masters Theses

This book is a journal of the conscious looking into my most unconscious behaviors. I documented and observed my unconscious habits, and tracked where they originally came from. Observing myself was both the process and the result of the work. I played a triple role throughout the process. I was an object, an observer, and a conduit. I wrote and became a subject of the writing. I used various forms, styles and voices in this book to align the work experience of these constantly changing roles with the writing experience and to embody different perspectives.

As a result, this book …

A Normal Novel Collection, Xiaopeng Qi

Masters Theses

This thesis is a game novel collection.

Which is an experimental attempt that I use the playable texts as a way to document daily clues. While reading the thesis, the readers will have an experience of the game-like sense of substitution and view switching. Through the narrative of texts, I try to express that in the future, making games which under structural wraps is a living strategy way to self-expression and communicate to outside in this hyper-normal spectacular society.

The Body Carrying Its Otherness, Rae Yuping Hsu

Masters Theses

Prosthesis points to an addition, a replacement, and also an extension, enhancement, transcendence.

Prosthesis points to subtraction, the creation of a void, a need, disability, deficiency.

This thesis explores the ways in which the body and technology come into contact with one another and are incorporated, integrated, fused and reciprocal. It seeks to negotiate the slippage space within these contrasting stand points and propose that the body and its otherness was always already one.

Familiar Strangers, Rebecca Li

Masters Theses

I am interested in dialogues of connection – from our ongoing internal ramblings, to the moments where strangers do not feel like strangers, to the conversations that wander late into the night. Our connections are the foundations of the human experience; they give weight to the every-day and ground us in time and place.

Today, our digital devices have become invaluable tools for bringing people together. No matter where we ind our physical selves, we have the ability to tap into our digital worlds and access our most intimate social circles. But our seemingly insatiable desire for constant communication often …

Between Thoughts : On The Interconnectivity Of Things, Yunzhu Wang

Masters Theses

My furniture designs are sensory tools that offer a bridge between our mental world and the physical world. With a strong belief in systems of interconnectivity and equilibrium, I use my designs as tools to calibrate awareness to the flow of changes that occur as enduring undercurrents in our everyday lives. Using as stimuli basic mechanisms of measurement as well as sensory cues, my works are antennae to our perception, inviting finely-tuned attention to the subtleties of response between our body and the physical environment. In the process of our participation, we come to see the dynamics of action and …