Art and Design Commons^™

Umbrales (Thresholds), Maureen Scally

Masters Theses

Umbrales is Spanish for Thresholds.

Thresholds are by nature ambivalent spaces, inviting two distinct realities into play. As an artist, I materialize my experiences as a migrant into an architectural form. A series of textile walls shape a space that is simultaneously interior and exterior so that the audience circulates in the negative space in between. It is in the construction of this threshold condition — a simultaneous placement, neither here nor there — that a complex narrative of place unfolds.

Unconditioning Air, Weijia Deng

Masters Theses

Unconditioning Air rethinks the boundaries contrived through environmental control. For more than a century, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) defined the boundaries of interior air. The regime and tools of mechanical conditioning promise stability and manageability of indoor air quality at the expense of external phenomena, and by extension, any complexity or fluctuation in the environment. As a result, air conditioning premises that ideal interior comfort is “bubble-like”, requiring increasingly standardized and highly regimented regulatory tools. The plethora of patent drawings, duct specifications, and ASHRAE comfort codes produce an oppressively tightening grip over indoor air and comfort, rendering both …

Landing: Body, Site, Material, Renata Berta

Masters Theses

I believe that in order to build on the land, I must establish a profound relationship with it. As an outsider to New England territories, I actively seek this connection through immersive activities such as swimming, surfing, climbing, and extensive walks, immersing myself in the land to better understand it and synchronize with its rhythms. In my artistic and architectural practice, I explore dissolving traditional boundaries, emphasizing the vital return to the land to create a more responsive and embodied architecture that symbiotically engages with the landscape

Within this ongoing project, “Landing: Body, Site, Material,” I conceptualize my body not …

Urban Looms, Recoloring City, Ella Son

Masters Theses

The metropolis has been a dominant and defining aspect of my life. Acutely aware of visual illusions created by the choreographed and unchoreographed movements of people in the streets and the distortions of light and shadow on the glass facades of skyscrapers, I reinterpret the patterns and colors that are in constant interplay into a collection of architectural textiles.

With an emphasis on optical layering, these immersive installations recreate the quality of being spellbound in the city. Scaled to emphasize verticality and activated through transparent overlays and dense color interplay, a rich visual field is activated. In their application, the …

Threading With Hair // Intertwined Stories, Cloris Ding

Masters Theses

“Threading with Hair // Intertwined Stories” is a poignant exploration that navigates the nuanced landscape of women's growth and identity recognition amidst biased societal influences, tracing the trajectory from the artist’s mother's generation to her own. Through a deeply personal lens, the thesis transcends individual narratives to articulate some shared female experiences. Employing reflective works in the form of jewelry, objects and writings, the study delves into female-centric topics, including the fluidity of identity, the transformative journey through various life stages, and the profound impact of societal expectations and family heritage. At the heart of this exploration is the metaphorical …

New Craft: Craft Practices In The Digital Era, Paulina Bereza

Masters Theses

Advancements in technology point to a thriving future through the allure of new tools and the promise of enhanced performance. With the current environmental crisis, military invasions and broader global conflicts, how can we utilize new digital media in a way that dismantles oppressive positions of power? Looking towards the future, I explore the potential of materiality and new methods of making, to reshape our relationship with the environment and each other. I collaborate with newly adopted forms of intelligence, artificial and automated, to express and reconcile the accelerated cultural shift. From ancient fibres to digital circuits, what will the …