Art and Design Commons^™

Lost Stories, Yuxuan Huang

Masters Theses

The owner of the laundromat by the corner of my temporarily sublet room in New York once told me his life story randomly on the last day I went to dry my bedding. We had never spoken before because we both weren't sure if the other spoke Mandarin.

It’s a long and intricate one, so long and intricate that he could write his own book and become the protagonist of a realist novel. If one word could describe this world and the life we all live, it should be “Wuchang.” According to various authoritative Chinese-to-English dictionaries, it could mean unpredictable, …

So Far So Good, Cooper Goldman

Masters Theses

What is the most beautiful object in the world?

The thick, heavy, white, porcelain diner mug.

Describe what you make…

Home goods and furniture. Crafted with attention to detail, with materials that you can feel good about.

Why do you make what you make?

Through the elevation of ordinary objects, we can elevate our daily routine.

The Future Is Over, Dotan Appelbaum

Masters Theses

History is constructed out of the narratives by which we organize the substance of all that has ever happened. Our understanding of the contemporary moment is determined by how we shape our history. The future is a promise that emerges from how we contextualize our place in time.

This thesis starts by acknowledging that the futurity promised by enlightenment liberalism is inconceivable in the face of contemporary horrors and climate catastrophe. Given this reality, what are we doing as designers? With a Benjaminian understanding of and a Foucauldian approach to history, this thesis constructs a history of design that follows …

Creating An Index To Graduate Theses To Support Their Discoverability, Ellen Petraits

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

As a Research and Instruction Librarian, one of the most frequent questions I'm asked is how to find past theses on a particular topic or theme. There is an active thesis culture at RISD that goes beyond writing and binding a text. An exhibition is held in the graduate gallery to celebrate a curated selection of theses at the beginning of the academic year. (See Book of Thesis Books) Theses can range in format from an artist book to a loose-leaf portfolio. Many emphasize the visual and are a bridge to the student’s studio work. They may include unusual or …

Learning Curve: Designing An Inclusive Early Childhood Learning Center, Sarah Alrumayh

Theses and Dissertations

This research centers on the improvement of early childhood education environments in hopes to reduce the disparities in outcomes among children aged 2-6, widely known as "the achievement gap." It sheds light on designing an inclusive, child-centered school for students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) and speech or language impairments (SLI). Drawing on the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), it underscores the benefits of integrating students with special education needs into mainstream education, thereby fostering inclusive learning environments. (IDEA, 1975).

The research question probes how to create a nurturing and adaptable school environment tailored to the diverse needs of …

A Light On Europe. The International And Intermedial Trajectory Of A Medieval Chandelier At The Turn Of The Nineteenth Century, Eveline Deneer

Artl@s Bulletin

This article investigates the shaping of European visual culture by tracing the international and intermedial trajectory of the visual motive of a chandelier from a 15th-century Burgundian manuscript in the decades around 1800. Passing from Brussels, Paris, Lyon, Mannheim, and Vienna to Coburg, and moving from illumination to drawing, archaeological illustration, painting, engraving to the applied arts, its trajectory exemplifies the historical conditions and cultural phenomena that animated the formation of a European visual culture, at a time when historical and national consciousness were developing on the continent.

The Approach: A Promise Of Warmth Inside, Louis Cohen

Masters Theses

Walking up those stairs is always a treat. The tacit knowledge that you are moving towards a hidden gem: a space most don’t know to find. Salt water, wood smoke, and roasted coffee perfume the air. But the best part of all is the intention. This is not a space to go to out of necessity or convenience. This is a space for slow sips and long reprieves.

This thesis explores many themes, but at the heart is the idea of The Approach: how we come to an object is just as important as the actual moment when we meet …

Postindustrial Playbook++, Maxwell Fertik

Masters Theses

There is no such thing as an undisrupted ecosystem. Every inch of the planet is impacted by industrial development and its chemical legacy has mutated the soil and water. As a response, this thesis is designed to promote abundant over extractive resources and visualize a post-industrial reality. It consists of a series of objects, writing and design research on the relationship of industry and ecosystem.

In many ways it is a playbook++, laying out possible strategies or “plays’’ for making do with what exists around us amid collapse.

Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica)(ي'ڑ*), a plant that grows in the most degraded …

Militure, Bingdong Duan

Masters Theses

The aim of this research is to explore how individual soldier equipment can be systematically integrated into everyday life. War, as the epitome of struggle and conflict, stimulates the fundamental human instinct for survival. To achieve this end, various methods involving a wide range of fields such as technology, culture, economy, and politics are utilized. Under the driving force of survival, explorations are conducted in various areas, with individual soldier equipment being notably prominent. Nations spend a substantial amount each year on developing individual soldier equipment, which optimizes functionality to such an extent that it has formed its unique aesthetics …

Sanctuary, Harsha Kejriwal

Masters Theses

When I first arrived in New England, I was accustomed to thinking of winters as short but pleasant periods. For me, winter was a break from the strong and relentless sunlight of summer in Central India. But the contrast between my childhood winters and the same months in the Northeastern United States was dramatic. Statistically, Providence has an average of five hours of sunlight a day whereas Central India enjoys 9.5 hours during its coldest months. This pronounced change in light piqued my interest. I was struck by the various phenomena created by natural light during these cold months. Sunlight, …

Living In Nature & Design With Nature, Yuya Zhou

Masters Theses

“Each material has its own personality. What we need to do, as a co-worker, is to understand the material characteristics, negotiate with these materials and find a common space to create a beautiful design along with the materials.”------ Yuya Zhou

From the flexible use of biodegradable materials by the Yanomami people, to the brief introduction of the concept of biodesign, and to the organic combination of biodesign and furniture design, it is clear to see that furniture not only undertakes the functionalities as a product, but also plays an important role in constructing a harmonious environment and improving people’s mental …

The People's Food Project, Grace Barrett

Masters Theses

The architectural design of spaces offering food assistance has received little to no attention since food pantries emerged in the 1970s. Non-profit food initiatives are often sited quickly with limited resources, producing inadequate spaces unable to fully support a food insecure community, prioritize the experience of users, and create a sense of belonging. The current spaces limit services to merely food distribution. They do not take advantage of the opportunity to expand socioeconomic capital through the power of shared food experiences: growing, cooking, eating, and learning.

This thesis redefines the traditional food pantry model, responding to explorations in psychological comfort …

A Part Apart, Spenser Atlas

Masters Theses

I am fascinated by connections. Things that click, snap, slide, and hold. I care about the ways in which objects meet, looking for answers in the space between. What binds one thing to another?

I believe the world is presented to us in pieces. It’s hard to say how it all comes together. It's easy to believe things are shapeless and detached from each other. Connection is a bridge, a way of linking one thing to another that reveals interdependence, and eventually moves outwards to express a correlation between pieces, once assumed to be discrete and isolated.

This work is …

Knot, Just Craft It, Qingxian Xu

Masters Theses

The thesis aims to explore the intersection of traditional crafts and modern design by modernizing traditional Chinese crafts like knitting and knotting. The objective is to preserve the aesthetic, cultural, and utility values embedded in these crafts while creating a series of home-scaled furnishing designs that offer a self-making experience.

By applying traditional crafts to modern daily life, the thesis seeks to give new life to the essence of traditional crafts and create new life experiences that are accessible to more consumers. The focus will be on creating modern designs that incorporate traditional knotting and knitting techniques, while also offering …

The Center For Centering Dome, Olek Piechaczek, Ryan M. Scharf

Architectural Engineering

The Center for Centering seeks to create a large-scale healing center, conducive to individual centering of the mind and body. This mobile installation provides a relaxing, enclosed space while still maintaining a connection to the outdoors. The clients liked the idea of having a pop-up installation that could be easily set up as a touring display. With a deadline for installation looming in June 2022, a team of students had five months to design and manufacture the structure.

In winter 2022, the students developed custom geometry to minimize the number of individual parts and built a ¼ scale model of …

Valuation, Tobias Gilbert

Art and Art History Honors Projects

My Studio Art honors project seeks to question the delineation between art, craft, and design and the lack of value placed on most everyday objects. While in our society homes are seen as an investment to be maintained and passed down, almost none of the objects that fill said home receive this level of care leading to mass consumerism of objects made merely to fit a function, not to last or hold their value. Valuation is a set of dining room furniture made of red oak and white ash accompanied by a full set of ceramic dinnerware and napkins. The …

In This Form, Together, Elana Shvalbe

Masters Theses

Most of my memories consist of lively dinner parties. Hands moving in every direction when the food is brought out. The piano bench for the kids to sit on, the fold out table necessary to fit everyone around the meal, and always endless stacks of plates. These experiences and traditions were curated by my heritage and have a strong presence in the work I design. I intend to understand and create interlocking relationships of care, where ritual and romance lead the way to form a community; designing and making furniture and objects that reassert hospitality within the home.

Hospitality is …

Just Enough, Amelia Greteman

Masters Theses

As a child, I never answered the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with “a furniture designer.” Even though both of my parents are artists, making things never seemed like a job; it just seemed like something we all loved to do. Some of my best memories are of working in the studio alongside them - painting, smearing, building, and destroying, but always vigilantly coloring within the lines.

This thesis investigates my past and current relationship to making and the urge I have to simplify and reduce. It takes place in the form of furniture …

A Wavering Line, Ginger Gordon

Masters Theses

Someone once told me it only takes a difference of ten degrees in temperature to change the entire course of the day.

I work with objects in collaboration with space, focusing on the intangible meeting point between visibility and invisibility.

Propelled by coincidence and temporal shifts, the transitory, the fragmented, and the found are all welcome, as are the methodologies of the Surrealists and Cubists. Born from a combination of fortuity and planning, curated fragment collages coalesce to represent acts of chance in three dimensions. Balanced forms weave and sway as small portholes direct a view. Form follows chance.

Miles And Miles And Miles, Shannon Rose Jones

Masters Theses

miles and miles and miles is a body of work that draws design inspiration from the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, a region unflattened by ice during the last ice age. The works are site specific extrapolations that have been abstracted in order to trigger a process of memory recollection in the viewer. Selections of atmospheric prose, furniture objects, illustrations, and imagery are presented as snapshots of a place in an attempt to memorialize and make tangible ephemeral memories collected by the maker traveling in this vast landscape. Attention is given to the distillation of form in order to contemplate its …

The Sky Is Falling, Alexis Tingey

Masters Theses

The ceiling would fall apart in my childhood home, it was an old house. Occasionally a piece of ceiling would clomp down on my head. In these moments, I would pause, and close my eyes until an image of some fabulous, beautiful interior came into my mind, and then I would open my eyes and continue. Sometimes to escape a falling ceiling, I would find respite in my first ideal sitting spot, a post on our back fence; I would sit with the sky and think. Looking back, I believe these are the moments where I caught glimpses of the …

Notes To Myself, Anna Dawson

Masters Theses

Immersed in the sun’s light, my body feels saturated, during a long day at the beach. When it begins to cool down and the day inverts into night, I watch the sun set on the ocean horizon. Bart Lootsma, the Dutch architectural theorist describes this experience of light as an immersion and inversion. Intangible, yet something to look at and something to submerge in.

This thesis is a personal journey, and an open exploration of the aesthetic and experience of furniture objects in everyday living. It is a collection of thought processes, observations, and speculations. Sometimes it’s just a note …

Slow Puzzle, Tzyy Yi Young

Masters Theses

One may argue that we all observe. It is this finely tuned capacity that allows designers to read context and to identify patterns. Since I was a child, I’ve been a carefully tuned explorer of the world, observing the world around me. Yet as a designer, I take this observational impulse to another level by recording my observations and then translating these impressions into form. What is seen, felt, and gathered is then edited, nuanced, and reformed. This act of translation becomes a slow puzzle as I look for cues, acknowledge every facet, and conceive of forms in such a …

Mood Follows Matter, Maxwell Taylor-Milner

Masters Theses

Function is an invisible thing - what disappears when an object is used? Ornament has long been considered an obstacle, a roadblock to forgetting. Capitalist logics of speed, efficiency, and distraction militate against a material culture that might require patient observation, against acquiring the skill to make thoughtful objects or the knowledge to read and appreciate them. The result is the impenetrable trash mishmash spectacle of virtual flea markets like Amazon and Alibaba, of trackable yet traceless objects whose visual identity is algorithmically generated - commodity mystification as pure capitalist abstraction.

While I bow to the quixotic nature of yearning …

Conceptual Chair Designs: Study Of Materials & Craftsmanship, Aram Festekjian

Honors Theses

This thesis is a study of different chair concepts made with various techniques and

methods. Usually, when taking a seat, people do not take a moment to appreciate the architecture and design thinking incorporated into a chair. The objective of my project is to have the viewer take a moment to appreciate and feel a particular way before taking a seat. I am inspired by many different architects and designers who have created chairs within their artistic careers. The thesis work includes four different conceptual chair sculptures made from steel, plywood, expanding foam, bullet liner, and bungee. When bringing my …

Superficial: An Exploration Of Decoration, Fashion, Taste, Camp, And Trends, Jillian Ohl

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

Since the rise of consumer culture in the late 19th century, Americans have had a complicated relationship with decorative objects, the idea of taste, and the cycle of trends within our classist society. This essay examines some of the decorative objects in my childhood home such as patterned wallpaper and an antique chair as well as a contemporary brand name mascara. While these objects do not have major functional properties, their decoration and superficiality bring me joy. To better understand my appreciation of decoration and aesthetics, I assess how an object or fashion is considered in good or bad taste. …

Scenes Of Screens, Scenes Of Sodomy: The Role And Impact Of The Folding Screen In Eighteenth-Century French Erotic Novels, Katherine Delony

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

This project provides an analysis of the folding screen as a literary agent and signifier which reflects the cultural happenings of the eighteenth century with specific emphasis on new ideas about queerness which arise in France during the eighteenth century. I will focus primarily on the Marquis de Sade’s (1740-1814) Justine, ou Les Malheurs de la vertu (1791) (as well as La Nouvelle Justine, 1797) and John Cleland’s (1709-1789) Le Fille de Joie (translated 1751) with reference to Jean-Louis Fougeret de Monbron’s (1706-1760) Margot la Ravaudeuse (1753), Sade’s Philosophie dans le boudoir Jean-François de Bastide’s (1724-1798) La …

It's All Fun And—: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Space In The Pandemic., Erica Von Proctor Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This exhibition and document explore spatial rhetoric during the pandemic, utilizing materiality and relational aesthetics to reflect on the different ways in which the public and private are made distinct from one another. In doing so, Lewis addresses new cultural navigations of shared spaces, both digital and corporeal, public and private. In addition, the artist also examines the faulty social and institutional systems that the pandemic brought to light, such as socioeconomic dynamics and voter suppression, while utilizing Kenneth Burke’s concept of the terministic screen. Games are a central theme throughout the exhibition, as they are often coded as “home” …

Misled Youth, Mark Tan

Theses and Dissertations

I’m a first-generation Canadian who was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario by Asian immigrants. I have migrated to the United States and lived here for 7 years. Through my work, I express the emotional value of preconceived notions, disconnectedness, and longing in search of finding place and acceptance within a community. Drawing from memory, personal narrative, emotion, and perception, I manipulate data into lines, forms, and materials through a subjective human experience from the lens of a non-citizen. By projecting the migration movement of my family lineage from China and the Philippines to Canada as well as my path …

Dregs / Lessons From The Things Around Us, Juan-Manuel Pinzon

Theses and Dissertations

The writing in Lessons From the Things Around Us is in support of the work in my MFA thesis show, dregs. I detail the progression of my making and thinking over the last two years. I expand on the material and personal relationships that have manifested themselves in the work and influenced my approach to the things that surround me. Finally, I point to a more expansive definition of Craft, rooted in its material sensibilities, and the possibilities already present in the field that this definition creates.