Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Can’T Stop Coyote, Tala Worrell

Masters Theses

I work hard to keep language out of my studio. Language reminds me of my mom’s voice, people telling me what to do, not having the right accent, critiques, criticism in general, mis-truths, and never being good enough. Language is the material of my thoughts, and most of my thoughts, or the ones on a constant loop anyhow, are all those voices over and over again.

Painting is where I get to be me, with myself, and in my body. Painting is my home, family, refuge, and best friend. I’m not looking at myself from the outside, no one can …

Tobetitled, Dylan Riley

Masters Theses

My practice is rooted in an investigation of digital and painted images. It meditates on the interbred way in which contemporary images are produced and consumed through painting and error-prone processes of mechanical reproduction. As seeing is, for many, our confirmation sense (you have to see it to believe it) I search for the power structures and epistemological values within contemporary images, particularly representations of objects. My work explores how the meaning of objectivity has shifted over time and how images respond to that shift. Heavily relying on image making software, I first create compositions digitally before translating them to …

Material Illumination, Lauren Mikaela Glenn

Masters Theses

Design exists as a field within the domain of material, accompanied by art, engineering, and craft. Working in material allows the designer to develop material fluency, a language that is composed of matter in space. Material can be used to communicate - it can also be used to think. By engaging the body and its senses in the act of making one can connect the space around the body to the space of the mind, allowing ideas to exist in objects and thinking to happen through interaction with material. Through the documentation of a process of making in wood, glass, …

Memories Unboxed: Connecting People With Stories Of Our Possessions, Megan Tzu-Hsien Chao

Masters Theses

We constantly fall into a cycle of consumption that involves acquiring, retaining, and relinquishing items, whether we need them or not. Even though we are influenced by popular media to declutter more as we acquire new things, the root of the problem will still exist if we continue to neglect the reasons why we own things in the first place and why we hold onto them.

Why is it less stressful to make a list of possessions we enjoy having than to make a list of things we need to throw away?

This thesis hopes to relieve people of making …

Shifting Landscapes, Zahra Tyebjee

Masters Theses

Landscapes are never stable. Light, color, and weather interact to create dynamic atmospheres. As a designer who works with textiles and immersive spaces, I observe sensorial and fleeting elements of optical phenomena and textural landscapes. The goal of this collection of knitted fabrics is to capture the experience of these effects and bring atmosphere from the outdoors in. My memories of landscape are filled with impressions of light, color, and weather shifts. I draw from my experience of shifting landscapes to emphasize textural material exploration. I activate space through material contrasts, ephemeral qualities, and large-scale knitted fabrics. I seek to …

Soul Soiree: How “Sunday Best” Dressing Encourages Celebration Of Self, Olufisayo Quadri

Masters Theses

Celebration is an important part of living a fulfilled life. From significant milestone events like weddings and birthdays to smaller moments of serendipity, the act of celebration is an affirmation of one’s place in the world. Across cultures, communities have used festive textiles to show an appreciation for their values and histories.

We Got This..., Julian Wellisz

Masters Theses

Working nonstop? Not sleeping enough? Feeling alone in your deadlines? Are you struggling with work-life balance?

Know that you are not alone. Since the covid-19 pandemic began reports of loneliness, mental health issues, and burnout have increased.

It’s quite possible that you are opting-in to an individualistic culture of overwork. If you go to RISD that's almost certain. This is true for students and teachers alike.

While these current systems work for some (primarily those at the tops of their respected hierarchies), for the majority of us there are better ways of being. Providing social and emotional support and creating …

Shalom, Zoe Schwartz

Masters Theses

I am a Jewish Filipina American, a hybrid of two hyper feminine archetypes: the Jewish American Princess and the Pinay Beauty Queen. Generations of assimilation, colonization and genocide taught my matriarchs to internalize the white male gaze. It was not until I looked in the mirror that I saw her. She understands the importance of performance and appearances because she knows, in a world that will not protect you, there is safety in conforming to feminine norms. She uses her knowledge of pop culture, beauty standards, humor, class symbols and social acceptability to imitate and perform desirable [white] femininity and …

Transnationals; Or, The Modern Frankenstein, Kai Ji

Masters Theses

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.”

The title of this thesis is adapted from the title of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, and the quote above is said by the scientist in the novel. To associate the word “Frankenstein” with “transnationals” is not to refer to the transnational as the monster, but to …

World Settings, Elizabeth Meiklejohn

Masters Theses

Acoustical building materials, with their ability to absorb and diffuse sound, can reshape the character of interior spaces in profound ways. Woven textiles often perform as acoustical materials, whether by coincidence or by design; strategic use of textile structure and dimensionality can yield specific experiential qualities in homes, offices and shared spaces. The way certain materials manipulate sound can feel otherworldly, as if they break the laws of physics or the familiar parameters of one’s surroundings. The same properties can be found in emergent visual patterns and illusory lighting conditions, which provoke an investigative, deliberate way of looking.

In this …

Accidental Commensality Eating, Belonging, And Mazaa On The Streets Of Jaipur, Rini Singhi

Masters Theses

Commensality is more than just eating together at a shared table. "Who can eat with whom and what" is a divisive issue in India, where food and eating serve as functions of inclusion and exclusion. In this paper, I examine street food stalls in Jaipur as sites of eating together with strangers and ask, What forms of commensality do street food stalls enable? Can eating together on the street expand ideas about eating together in public? As part of my fieldwork in Jaipur, I observe the surroundings of street food stalls, participate in heritage food walks with guides, and document …

!, Nick Larson

Masters Theses

This thesis uses the exclamation point to represent a way of thinking and working methodology. The exclamation point in mathematics represents a factorial function, an operation for determining all possible orders of a set. Colloquially, the meaning of the exclamation point relies entirely on context. Within a yellow triangle, it means caution or danger, but at the end of a sentence delivering good news, it means excitement. In the context of this thesis, the exclamation point represents enthusiastically and exhaustively reordering objects, words, and processes to highlight shifting meaning.

Other Realms, Louis Rakovich

Masters Theses

Can a system existing in rigid order be taken back to a state of malleability, a space of potential not yet actualized?

If creation reduces the infinite to produce the finite, then in the simplest sense, creation is the process of bringing something tangible, real, out of the ether—out of the primordial chaos of possibility. The technique of defamiliarization can be viewed as an agent of de-creation, the active reversal of creation, in order to make creation possible once again. As such it holds spiritual power in its own right.

In pursuit of this state of renewed potentiality, I use …

Openness, Qiwen Ju

Masters Theses

We perceive the world as flat when we close one eye. When both eyes are open, the world takes on a three-dimensional quality.

Our childhood, education, family, and environment form and bind our cognitive perspective. As the ancient Chinese proverb goes: “You can’t see Mount Tai by blinding your eyes with one leaf.” Truth is exceedingly difficult to discern. Like the obscuring leaf, there are blind spots in our vision. Prejudice is often the narrow leaf that obstructs perception, preventing us from seeing with greater dimension.

For actual comprehension, we can only see through the eyes, hearts, and minds of …

Connect: Translating Complexity Through Visual Simplification, Ilhee Park

Masters Theses

CONNECT: Translating Complexity through Visual Simplification brings complex data into concise visual systems that encourage ease of access. With a background in Human Factors Engineering, user engagement remains a central focus in my design. Whether reducing barriers to scientific information or untangling deeply complex data, design must contain intuitive concepts without the need for extended explanation. Using bold color and geometric shapes as the core design language to render pictorial narratives, this thesis maps my development as an information designer through modes of gathering, deciphering, and interpreting.

Un-Done: The Historiographical Dialogue Between Past And Present, Rachel Cobler Wollert

Masters Theses

Art critic for The Nation and professor of at Columbia, Arthur C. Danto led the charge with his essay “The End of Art” in 1984 to declare the end of art. Thirty-eight years later, the awareness of colonial problematics in the elite institutionalism of art history today warrants a reanalysis of art historical ontologies of progress (and their ties to colonialism), which have seemingly disbanded in the discipline’s current rhetoric. Because Danto’s historical framework to end art focuses on progress through artistic means, does it fall short or even negate itself by missing the deconstruction of colonial afterlives still present …

Uncaring Universe, Jingqi Wang Steinhiser

Masters Theses

Depicting the mythical and chaotic, my work revisits traditional and pop-cultural icons. I borrow my framing of absurdity from Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus: “In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. [...]This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.”

I grew up as the only child in a family of diplomats, a learning journey that mutated across geographies. Born in China, I lived in Russia, Mongolia and Korea before coming to the USA. My world is an aesthetic amalgamation of dissonant …

Postmarked 2022, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Postmarked was a publication started during the COVID-19 pandemic by three RISD architecture students. The first issue has the theme of "sonder" and contains student writing and artwork on postcards that deal with this theme.

“Wall Book”, Cole Messinger, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.

Turnspit, Aimee Deng, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.

Grimoire Of A Lost Witch, Lily Hipp, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.

Memoire De Vente, Weicheng Xu, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.

Book Of Kodak, Haoxi Zhang, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.

Oral History Transcript | Interview With Dennis Hlynsky, April 3, 2022, Dennis Hlynsky, Andrew Martinez, Risd Archives

RISD Oral History Project Transcripts

No abstract provided.

Striking Chords Ii: Music In Ukiyo-E Prints (2022), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"The theme of music in ukiyo-e prints has been explored by the RISD art history students for two semesters (fall 2021 and spring 2022) in a hands-on curatorial format. The resulting exhibition Striking Chords: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints, is on view at the RISD Museum from February through July 2022.

The spring semester project is virtual. However, the approach is similar – to comprehensively study music-related prints in the collection of the RISD Museum and to share the findings with interested audiences, albeit in digital format.

Nineteen prints have been selected. In the exhibition’s virtual space, they are displayed according …

Envy, Jinghan Cheng, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.

The Seven Sins As Told In Verses By Edmund Spencer, Shuyan Chen, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.

V.1 Spring 2022, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The Spring 2022 issue contains writings divided into five categories: ecosystems, homes, archaeologies, explorations, and new constructions. Writings touch on urban ecology, wilderness, physical and mental health, identity, and other topics. Visual work is also present in this issue.

Snorkeling, Jinghong Chen, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

HONORABLE MENTION | $100 Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.

"They'd Kill Us If They Knew": Transgression And The Western, Jessica Perkins, Special Collections, Fleet Library

9th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2023

Entry for the 9th Annual Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening Reception Thursday, March 02, 2023, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Andre Lee Bassuet.