Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Hain't, Jarrett Key

Masters Theses

Jarrett Key’s thesis book examines their journey towards understanding their freedom through three lenses: Survival, Transformation and Celebration. Through pointed excavation of the oral histories and lost stories of their upbringing in rural Alabama, their work presents critiques of the historical conditions that sowed the seeds of their contemporary personhood, while simultaneously creating spaces to celebrate beauty, joy, and survival. The objects Key builds perform their freedom and are crafted from materials that reference pieces of their own personal narrative. Highlighting works from Leaving the City (oil paintings on cement), the Hot Comb (forged black steel sculptures), and Slave Ship/ESP …

Here And There: A Continuous Narrative, Hye Young Kim

Masters Theses

How can we transcend our literal place by connecting with natural space?

As industrialization and globalization have increasingly shaped our society, we have become more and more disconnected from nature, ourselves, and our memories. Furthermore, living busy lives, we have lost the ability to appreciate and be grateful for our surroundings. Nonetheless, we can reconnect with what has been lost—nature, ourselves, and our memories— with a small shift in our mindset and a habitual practice of walking, which pulls our footsteps not toward a certain place but toward an understanding of the passage of time, the resonance of longing, and …

Art Beside A Single Handshake : Can You Believe It?, Tongji Qian

Masters Theses

Although I was familiar with works by both McKinzie and Phil, their prints still caught my attention during the Printmaking Graduate Biennial at Rhode Island School of Design in January 2019. In contrast to the numerous talented artists who employed strategies to affirm the relevancy of printmaking in a contemporary discourse, McKinzie and Phil seemed to desire something different. Their collaboration series of Ten Identical Prints was predictably “printerly” and perilously unexciting, betraying a fraught and commonplace relationship between an expressive artist and a scrupulous master printer. How could these two artists showcase such mundanity? What was the stake of …

Recycle Bin (Trashure), Eunhyung Chung

Masters Theses

I am inspired by painful and exhausting situations, fragile or impermanent things that break easily and do not last long, so most of my works are installation or performance which changes as time goes by. I think a lot about the sense of loss and there are two kinds of loss in my work. One is the loss of precious moments and emotions of the past. Since I have so many blissful memories of my childhood related to art, they are the driving force of my artwork and they form the core of my identity. The loss of direction and …

Wrung From Grave Architectures, Megan Solis

Masters Theses

Found or imagined findings... notes, diary entries, texts, prayers and poems

Disasters are avenues to gain intimacy glory is the constant

What is the skeleton made of, if not to be filled with meat to be piled and molded to bring back life.

pain and memory to be grave architectures, the stuctures that fall,

a plea for humanity: “Am I just a phantom waiting to be ripped from shady ground?”

desperate melancholy we realize that she is

I am

you are

tragic.

guilt to perform, to retraumatize is a punishment and is masochistic. to violently reenact, like haunted ghosts, to …

I - 0, Sanghyun Koh

Masters Theses

This pack of cards is a provisional collection of encyclopedic thoughts and knowledge selectively hoarded for the artist’s comprehension of the world. These cumulative writings, packaged in a distributive form for intellectual play, cover the artist’s past workings, current studies and dormant plans, amassed in the responsible attitude of selection as well as in the irresponsible method of organization. The content of this 144-card deck is basically oriented to the oscillating status of a self seeking the ‘Grasping Totality’ as a human desire and of the ‘Improbability of Reach’ as a human limitation, whether true or false, proven or unproven, …

Unbound, Changrui He

Masters Theses

For many years, I have been repeatedly trying to understand what the term “trauma” means to me. While invisible, my trauma is ever-present, and I have not been able to understand how it has trapped me and my inner feelings. At the same time, more recently I don’t feel helpless or abandoned. I have been trying to tap the potential of connecting with the world outside, thereby piecing together the broken bits and pieces and reconciling with my family, past sorrows and myself.

In my thesis collection, I pay homage to a garden I often visited as a child. The …

Strata : Lessons In Latency, Mukul Chakravarthi

Masters Theses

Every visual artifact, from a street sign to advertising commercials, is an event of culture, a cross-section of time. Crucial to my work as a designer is to build an interpretive understanding of these images as more than surface, more than banal. Embedded in their construction are dense, unseen contextual latencies— social, economic, and political forces — that combine to define a cultural moment.

This thesis offers a series of lessons in making visible visual infrastructure. It emphasizes design’s semiotic potential to examine and leverage a view on what these visual signs represent as ideological constructions. Through a conscious un-layering …

Binge [Fantasy Reality], Elena Foraker

Masters Theses

[My appreciation for mainstream pop culture is genuine, but I am not a passive consumer.]

[Drawing from embodied experience and contemporary feminist theory, I design as a participant, cultural surveyor, and critic.]

[From these vantage points, I binge-watch to discern the tropes of media such as reality TV romance and dead girl shows.]

[My data bingeing leads to a process of archiving, de/recoding, and making visible the algorithm structuring pop culture.]

[“Fantasy” is derived from the Greek phantazein, meaning “to make visible.”]

[In this thesis, I demonstrate that the reality-fantasy relationship is not an either/or.]

[Reality TV challenges this notion …

Re: Ornament, Aleks Dawson

Masters Theses

Re:Ornament calls for a rethinking of ornament within the history and practice of design, urging a broad reconsideration of ornament’s value and a complete reimagining of ornament’s future potential. Charting the arc of ornament in the Western tradition, this thesis reexamines the impact of modernism’s rejection of ornament—and, with it, its embedded culture, history, knowledge and craft.

Studying ornament’s structure as a language, I make the case for ornament’s inherent beauty and excess and speculate on how ornament could apply to thinking and making beyond design. Through graphic form, material exploration and pattern thinking, I …

Ethnographemes, Vaishnavi Mahendran

Masters Theses

Spoken and written languages are living processes. As with our own natural systems, they are born, evolve in stages, yet also face the eventuality of death. Current research indicates that there are 7,111 spoken languages in the world. UNESCO lists a total of 577 languages as critically endangered.

This thesis examines the role of graphic design and its potential contribution to the preservation of endangered languages and writing systems of indigenous communities. My interest lies in exploring possibilities of the script serving as a vessel to share and celebrate deeper stories of each of these communities’ heritage.

Through my practice, …

Something To See Here, Weixi Zeng

Masters Theses

“Nothing to see here” is a suspicious phrase.

Whenever we hear it, we pause and become alerted. Something is most likely indeed happening, and worth noting — mishaps ranging from either an embarrassing coffee spill, unfair abuses of privacy, or insidious early signs of a pandemic.

Historically, states and national entities have always valued the power of information to allow them to see more, and see better — all the while obstructing the path to clarity for ordinary citizens. Systems and infrastructure have become expressions of authority, rife with distortion and deception. Familiar systems are commandeered to surveil us, yet …

Bluenessless, Yuxin Long

Masters Theses

Jewelry has a long history of functioning as wearable objects with memories. A small piece of jewelry on our body can become the bridge between one person and another.

My work is a memorial for the avifauna. It serves as a place that allows me to find the balance between myself and nature. The ritualized actions from the making process help me mourn for the loss of the kingfishers, who are hunted for the bright blue feathers used in traditional jewelry. Sometimes, people put a photograph in their jewelry to keep the memory of the one they love. I use …

Sol, John Beck

Masters Theses

Sol. Spirituality for the digital age. A move towards a more cosmic future. A hopeful call to arms for a more inclusive, liberated culture where the impermanence of life can wash over us in a wave of ambient sonic splendor. Using solar energy to create shifting ambient soundscape Sol is an immersive, interactive civic space for all lifeforms of all persuasions. A reintrepretation of the Shinto shrine for the digital age. An alliance between codified physical computing, emerging interactive technology and the ancient spiritual traditions of the East. Non denominational, non religious wholly universal. Where all beings can remember their …

Ocean State Food Stories, Charlotte Clement

Masters Theses

Many Rhode Islanders lack access to local food system education. They struggle to connect with local food outlets as well as understand why supporting a resilient local food community matters. Local food producers face great challenges within the system such as finding stable ways to produce, distribute, and sell their merchandise. In addition, the RI government’s agricultural marketing efforts are not innovative and local food-centric nonprofits are swamped with work resulting in the outsourcing of creative marketing jobs that have yielded questionable results. In order to engage with a wider audience, both the government and the non-profit sector need to …

Repairer's Recipe : Volume 0, Joyce Chang

Masters Theses

Why?

Technology is accelerating; so is the amount of e-waste. Proliferating new purchases is a shortcut to economic gain, yet proliferation sacrifices social and ecological well being. Activating repair benefits systems— by decelerating the waste stream, and serving as a regenerative module for ethical material collection. Repair literacy encourages an individual’s engagement with materials while challenging corporations to acknowledge repair in the design process. Therefore, electronics users should have the opportunity to learn about repair before the need arises. A sustainable product ecosystem asks for the collaborative effort of public and private sectors and most importantly, the repair practices of …

Beautiful Dirt : Exploring The American Taboo Of Death Through The Things We Leave Behind, Jake Dangstorp

Masters Theses

‘Beautiful Dirt’ is a project meant to help people think about death as a way to learn and grow, rather than a ‘never happening’ taboo. Contemporary research into western dialogues around death show a consistent anxiety towards being forgotten, as well as a fear of being a burden when passing away. The abject nature of the topic leaves people diminishing the weight of the things they leave behind, and the things they forget to. This perpetuates a cycle of denial in order to avoid stress, emburdening loved ones with an unplanned mass of personal items and piecemeal stories to assemble, …

Acute, Alex D'Haeseleer

Masters Theses

This project digs deep into issues of accessibility, education, and transparency for those who create health data. By using surveys, interviews, user testing, and secondary research, this project aims to both provide a possible solution while also underlining the market resistance to a more equal exchange between consumer and producer. Data collection is a part of everyone’s lives. Privacy is a hot topic. Many people misunderstand data use, and it seems corporations are taking advantage of that. Our bodies and our devices produce and create data, and that information is then used for research, profit, or general consumer benefit. This …

Designed Body, Jingwei Deng

Masters Theses

Designed Body is a project about gendered design and identities. It is an investigation into the relationship between the persona analyzation process and the social identity categorization. It is a criticism towards capital driven planned obsolescence and binary determinism based design. It is a discussion around the future of our subjective and objective self under the circumstance of technological development. It is a material exploration of body, extended body and transformative body.

Invisible: A Guide To Understanding & Designing For Introverts, Ashesh Gohil

Masters Theses

The Extrovert Ideal has been an unspoken pillar of society: a vocal, go-getting person with a Carpe Diem mindset has become a requirement that most are told to strive for in order to be successful. Fundamental institutions like schools and workspaces are designed for extroverts and their need for stimulation, which becomes a hurdle for introverts since it obstructs them from being their dispositionally quiet and thoughtful selves. Such spaces need to be inclusive to allow introverts to be present in the way they prefer. One way to make space for introverts in settings otherwise designed for extroverts is through …

Voran Test Lab : An Exploration Of Teaching Collaborative Problem Solving And Critical Thinking Through Emergent Gameplay, Taber Gifford

Masters Theses

This book explores emergent gameplay as a methodology for teaching collaborative problem solving and critical thinking. These are both key 21st Century Skills and are important in educating and building future professionals and leaders. I explored the precedent analysis of game design in this category before conducting my own design research activities and experiments. Ultimately, my work culminated in the design and development of a game called Voran Test Lab. The game is designed to engage early middle school students and ask them to critically evaluate problems and collaboratively solve them.

Through The Labyrinth, Rebeca Gonzalez Morales

Masters Theses

After many turns, I made my way through. Making connections between different paths, paths I thought I had forgotten, abandoned, discarded. My goal is to understand how the environment around us affects our emotional state, our behaviour, our mental health. I seek a destigmatized idea of mental health, a way to show that it is a factor of everybody’s health meant to be prioritized as much as physical health, to expose the burden of frivolousness that it carries. I seek ways to burst the bubble that mental health lives in the world of design, to show that mental health should …

Fifty Fifty: Redefining Domesticity, Ziying Qiao

Masters Theses

I want to redefine domesticity and challenge traditional gender roles by rethinking the division of domestic chores.

In this project, I discussed gender roles, especially for how the house design impacts gender inequality and the perfect female figure in traditional context— good mother, good wife. In the experiment part, I explored the possibility of collaborative housework and designed different objects related to daily life to remind people of the importance of collaboration.

For the final design part, I applied surveillance camera and machine learning technology to a private space, designed a radical service about chores, and also discussed how people …

Totem: An Embodiment Of Human Character And Personality In Footwear Design, Sushant Shivaram

Masters Theses

This thesis is an attempt at drawing parallels between human character traits and footwear design as an evocative means to communicate character. The idea here is to translate qualitative elements of personality traits and communicate expressions through the embodiment of meaning within form in the context of footwear design. I am making an attempt at equating the meaning in form and footwear gestures that serve an emotional or functional purpose in footwear to break down the sculpture into a combination of different attributes so as to create a character taxonomy. This character taxonomy serves the purpose of assisting me in …

The Need For Christian Authors In Mainstream Fiction, Ashley Renea Starnes

Masters Theses

Fiction is an effective and underutilized tool in Christian circles to implicitly illustrate Christian ideas and values to readers of other worldviews. By adopting the writing approach of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, Christian writers can enter into the broad discussion of philosophy, morality, and theology going on in popular fiction.

Imagined Spaces: Land, Identity, And Kuban' Cossack State-Building In Revolutionary Russia, 1917-1922, Grace Ehrman

Masters Theses

In 1917, the February Revolution ended the Russian Empire and the Kuban’ Cossacks’ military obligations to the tsarist estate system. Kuban' Cossack ethnic identity existed and evolved within the estate system prior to the 1917 revolutions. When the estate system collapsed, the Cossacks declared their identity as a separate ethnic minority. Backed by the Cossack villages’ democratic votes, Kuban’ Cossack elites and politicians created the Kuban’ People’s Republic, an independent anti-Bolshevik state, in the North Caucasus region. Designed to preserve local autonomy, settle disputes over land given to the corporate Cossack body in exchange for military service, and to avoid …

Barren: A Case Study Using Art In Religious Instruction To Foster Empathy By Providing Deeper Insight And Encouraging Contemporary Dialogue, Esther Hi'ilani Candari

Masters Theses

This thesis draws upon a review of current literature related to the empathy-building potential of fine art and experiences of infertile women, especially those within Judeo-Christian communities, to build a case study for utilizing fine art to create stronger more empathetic communities. For this case study, the researcher utilized an online survey of infertile Judeo-Christian women to further clarify the specific needs of this minority group. Then she drew upon a broad array of current and historical literature and artwork to discern what cultural and theological trends may have framed infertility as a stigma. Using this information she then produced …

An Examination And Critique Of The Compatibility And Coherence Of Brian Leiter’S Naturalized Jurisprudence With The American Legal Framework, Michael L. Keck

Masters Theses

In this thesis I argue Brian Leiter’s vision for a naturalized jurisprudence stands in problematic tension with critical facets of objective morality presupposed by the American legal system. Leiter makes the case for the naturalization of jurisprudence through adherence to his version of a naturalistic epistemology. Though Leiter explicitly rejects moral realism—and embraces elements of legal positivism—he acquiesces to the notion that judges sometimes utilize non-legal, “moral reasons,” when deciding cases. Leiter suggests that any moral “knowledge” that may influence the process of adjudication should be delivered by the hard sciences. I suggest Leiter’s epistemological naturalism is incapable of providing …

Final Opportunities For Healthcare Chaplains To Share The Gospel To Those Facing End Of Life, Michal Lynn Lee

Masters Theses

Spiritual care is a necessity for end-of-life care. Those with terminal illnesses and facing death are concerned about things of spiritual or existential nature. The National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care study indicated that most patients want to have their spiritual concerns addressed, and yet, spiritual concerns are not adequately addressed with the medical team and the current system of care. This paper builds on the role of the chaplain within a healthcare context for those facing end-of-life scenarios and reinforces the impact of the chaplain to fulfill his primary role of addressing eternal issues. Healthcare chaplains enter the …

Easily Read, Easily Forgotten: Reassessing The Effects Of Visual Difficulties And Multi-Modality In Educational Text Design, Rebekah Cochell

Masters Theses

The graphic design of a book affects the way the reader receives and processes information. However, design is often focused on aesthetic principles and traditional wisdom, not taking into account how design aspects affect cognitive processes and educational outcomes. This thesis examines the efficacy of page design elements on educational outcomes, specifically disfluent fonts, handwritten fonts and multi-modal design. The traditional wisdom of typography has maintained that the faster the human eye can read a text, the more suited it is for reading materials. However, recent research suggests that disfluent, or difficult-to-read fonts result in significantly improved reading comprehension and …