Art and Design Commons^™

The Met Costume Institute: Evolution, Metamorphosis, And Cultural Phenomenon, Shelby Kanski

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery (Sewing) Society: Handcraft As A Metaphorical Tool For The Abolitionist Cause, Hinda Mandell

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In 1851, in Rochester, New York, a group of six women banded together as the founding members of an anti-slavery group in order to support the work of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. They called themselves the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery (Sewing) Society, although they dropped “Sewing” from the group’s name in 1855. Yet the fact that “Sewing” was included in the original name of this reformist group indicates the foundational role of craft not only as a guiding activity but also central as an activist mechanism to abolish the institution of slavery. They were the benefactors of Frederick Douglass, himself regarded …

Seen And Unseen, The Milspouse Project, Michelle Henning

Senior Honors Projects

MICHELLE HENNING (Art)

Seen and Unseen, The MilSpouse Project

Sponsor: Lilla Samson (Art and Art History, Emerita)

I was a military spouse for 20 years. To honor this closing chapter of my life, I developed a project to interview and paint several military friends. My intention was to create a theme of the overlooked, often unseen, spouse. This is not absolute, and it is not to detract from the service of the soldier; but Military Spouses are often misunderstood or mis-represented. I hope to celebrate the inspiring people that form the group known as "MilSpouses". For that reason, I interviewed …

Making Data Playable: A Game Co-Creation Method To Promote Creative Data Literacy, Stefan Werning

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article explores how making data playable, i.e. developing exploratory co-creation techniques that use elements of play and games to interpret small to mid-sized datasets beyond the current focus on visual evidence, can help a) promote creative data literacy in higher education, and b) expand existing definitions of data literacy. The article briefly investigates playful characteristics in existing data practices, and discusses how this perspective compares to existing frameworks that define data literacy. In a second step, we present a Discursive Game Design technique to promote creative data literacy. The article reports on findings from a sample workshop, during which …

Early Adolescents' Perceptions And Attitudes Towards Gender Representations In Video Games, Helen Liu

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study investigated adolescents’ perception and attitudes towards gender representation in video game covers, and the degree to which these depictions may influence their notions on gender and identification. Seventeen participants ranging from ages 12 and 13 participated in semi-structured interviews to explore this topic. This study’s conceptual framework encompassed social cognitive theory, gender schema theory, and cultivation theory. Findings suggest that gender representation in video games does influence the majority of participants’ notions of gender. However, there are differences between how males and females’ approach, interpret, and respond to this type of media. Findings also showcased that evidence of …

East Of Adams, Autumn Walter

Senior Honors Projects

East of Adams is a photography project that explores the conservationist messaging ofAnsel Adams’s historical work and translates this work into shooting the Acadia National Park in Maine. Adams is well known for his documentation of our national parks in the western United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Armed with his large format camera he created his images in order to speak to the importance of conserving the natural beauty ofAmerica’s unique wild lands. Inspired by Adams’s drive to use photography in order tomotivate conservation, East of Adams will focus on similar goals within the Eastern United States at …

When Valerie Solanas Shot Andy Warhol: A Feminist Tale Of Madness And Revolution, Phyllis Chesler

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In 1967 Valerie Solanas published the Society for Cutting Up Men (the SCUM) Manifesto. She shot artist Andy Warhol in 1968. Her Manifesto raises issues about whether a revolution can be fought or won without using violence. “Nice” girls were of no use to her Radical feminists, especially Ti-Grace Atkinson and Flo Kennedy, saw Solanas as a symbol of a feminist fighting back and rushed to her side. They found a smart, very paranoid woman who was a decided loner. Ultimately, Solanas would not work with Atkinson and Kennedy; she refused to allow them to help her or explain …

Kat Holmes, Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design (2018), Daniele Savasta

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Tim Brown, Change By Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations And Inspires Innovation (2009), Esra Gonen

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

“Design For Enterprises”: Developing European Smes Capabilities For Design-Driven Innovation, Marinella Ferrara, Chiara Lecce

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This article aims to present Design for Enterprises (DfE) tender project, founded by the European Commission, designed and provided by the Consortium composed by D’Appolonia, MIP/Politecnico di Milano and ADI. DfE has been settled as a training program on design-driven innovation customized in order to prepare intermediary business development organizations to support SMEs managers and entrepreneurs. After a short introduction of the topic and a general presentation of the project, the article proposes a follow-up on the ADI contribution to support design thinking processes during the entire set-up of the training course. The article reports also the critical points that …

How To Face "Design Thinking": Human-Centered Problem Solving And Designer's Attitude To Approach, Takehiko Yogo

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

In this moment the way of understanding the role of design is considerably different from the past. This commentary provides the issues and possibilities of "design thinking" from the viewpoint of GK Dynamics, which has long been engaged in design focusing on mobility through pondering about “design thinking" and how we are going to utilize it in business.

The word "design thinking" has penetrated society and has been utilized in many scenes in companies and organizations, however various positive and negative opinions of its effectiveness exist. The interpretation of "design thinking" is diverse; some may believe it is "a way …

The Potentials Of Learning Object Design In Design Thinking Learning, Can Guvenir, H.Humanur Bagli

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

The market needs surviving skills such as creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking due to the evolving technologies; therefore, design thinking educations are getting spread. Design thinking education aims learners to gain problem-solving mindset by passing through the design thinking processes. Design thinking education - as a constructivist learning approach - has skill-based, effective and cognitive learning outcomes. The constructivist learning approach is based on constructing the knowledge on the prior knowledge of the learner by interacting with other learners, instructors and learning objects. Learning objects are the fundamental part of a learning process that carries the properties of the …

Thinking And Designing With Design Thinking, Ahmet Can Ozcan, Yasuko Takayama

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Design Thinking is a popular phrase especially for the last ten years penetrating into the discourse of management and design, business and academia in many ways. The contributions in the form of articles, commentaries and reviews in this MGDR Design Thinking Special Issue show us the examples, how and where we can use Design Thinking especially as an integral part of the design process. The area of design is expanding in diverse ways lately and sometimes it is causing the confusion such as Design Thinking is either a magical design tool, or another buzzword destined to go extinct after inevitable …

Elevating The Environment Through Artistic Expression, Becky Gumbrewicz

Senior Honors Projects

REBECCA GUMBREWICZ (Environmental Science and Management)

Elevating the Environment Through Artistic Expression

Sponsor: Judith Swift (Communication Studies, Coastal Institute)

Currently there are multiple areas of environmental concern that require not only scientific research but increased public awareness in order to motivate further action toward preservation of our environment or remediation of human impacts. To promote a broader perspective of the most effective ways to communicate science, this project offers the culmination of an environmentally-focused art showcase of student interpretations of science that one could posit elevated public perception of the environment. An integral part of conducting research is understanding how …

From Eye Sore To Eye Catching: Improving Function And Appeal Of Campus Spaces, Katherine E. Gorham

Senior Honors Projects

An interior space has a lot of power over an individual. It can dictate one’s mood, efficiency, confidence, and more. Most people can recall a time when a room had a negative effect on their mindset and productivity level due to its lack of color, light, or comfort. A functional, well lit, warm space makes for an uplifting and motivating work environment. Throughout my college career, I have encountered several spaces across the University of Rhode Island campus that aren’t the most visually appealing, comfortable, or inspiring, yet they still have plenty of potential. The goal of my project was …

Fake Or Visual Trickery? Understanding The Quantitative Visual Rhetoric In The News, Rohit Mehta, Lynette Deaun Guzmán

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In online and video/television spaces, news media discourses incorporate multimodal design as a discursive move capable of steering meaning toward desirable implications. Around the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, while polarized news outlets made their positionality on the candidates obvious, more neutral or central news outlets revealed their preferences through subtle multimodal design choices. One of these design choices is using a quantitative visual rhetoric: persuasive multimodal moves that draw on quantification through visual, spatial, and textual manipulation—involving the choice of data representation, visual images, and illustrations, (im)balance between numeric and alphabetic texts, and general quantitative narrative. This quantitative visual rhetoric …

A Girl's Guide To Nail Art, Emma Rohnstock

Senior Honors Projects

Nail art has led me to be more creative in my life and helped me find my passions of film, photography, and art. I started sharing my nail art through an online blog, but wanted to formalize my interest through a book and possibly a publication in the future. By making this book, I wanted children who read it to learn a new skill and find inspiration in each technique. Nail art has allowed me to express myself and discover my creativity, so I hope this book will allow a younger audience to do the same. I wanted to share …

Creative Nonnatives: Painting Invasive Insects Of The United States, Monica Tynan

Senior Honors Projects

An invasive species is a nonnative organism that may cause damage to an ecosystem. Invasive species cause problems in an environment by outcompeting native organisms for resources or by feeding upon native species. Invasive insects in particular can harm an ecosystem by consuming foliage and decreasing biodiversity. During my experience at the Preisser Lab at the University of Rhode Island, I witnessed rsthand the damage that invasive insects can do to a tree population, and I learned about how ecosystem dynamics can be disrupted by the introduction of a nonnative species.

My project portrays an aesthetically pleasing visualization of several …

Bleeding Ink: Creativity In Grief For Resilience, Gabriel E. Sayre

Senior Honors Projects

A venomous void pierces the present.

Emanating from the past, echoing to the future.

Seething sensations burrowing beneath the bone.

Seek a road, to not corrode.

Scribe or scribble, Scavenge salvation.

Settle cement of a new foundation.

Faceless fears fading,

weakening woes waning,

mending mentality.

Internally Inspired.

Transformation Transpired.

Project Anonymous: When Anonymity Meets Artwork, Robert J. Riglietti

Senior Honors Projects

In an attempt to build a new type of even playing field for artists, Kira Wencek and I developed an anonymous art sharing web app under the moniker of Project Anonymous. In an attempt to mitigate the drawbacks of current online avenues for creative content sharing, the app addresses privacy issues, visibility issues, and external artist influence. As the theorist of the group, using research from Manuel Castelles, Danah Boyd, and Jaron Lanier, I assisted in shaping the functionality and oversaw the general direction of the application. This assisted me in theorizing the hypothetical outcomes and social impacts that the …

Alternative Process Photography: Beyond Digital And Film, Laura Michaud

Senior Honors Projects

The first permanent photograph was created in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. To do this, he coated light sensitive chemicals on a metal plate and exposed it in a camera obscura (a box with a small hole; a “pinhole camera”). Once the plate was properly exposed to light, he used more chemicals to stop the plate from being light sensitive and make the image permanent on the plate. Throughout the years, many photographers and chemists used many different chemicals, materials, and procedures to create permanent and beautiful images (i.e. Daguerreotypes, Calotypes, Heliographs, etc). With each new process, the previous processes …

Nasty People: An Illustrated Guide To Understanding Sex, Sophia Weaver

Senior Honors Projects

Sex made me and it probably made you too, but for many of us sex remains a mystery for our entire lives. I see sexual images every day, but I rarely hear it discussed openly or factually. This is problematic. If most people are having sex and most people have a lot of misinformation about it, STDs, unwanted pregnancies and even sexual assaults are much more likely. Research suggests that increased (and well developed) sex ed. can reduce all of the possible negative outcomes of sexual misinformation. My observations of everyday life and my research in academia have given me …

The World Of The Cat's Table: Literature Through Production Design Analysis, Andrea J. Johnson

Senior Honors Projects

The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje is a rich piece of literature that has a diverse set of characters confined to one pivotal location, a ship. Just as the novel builds a world around its characters, in this project I attempted to build a space around immersive design choices.

Production Design is a visual response to analytic reading. By taking a written piece or concept and creating the physical/visual atmosphere for the work, a production designer’s job is to create the overall look and tone of a creative production, be it for a film, play, or museum space. This is …

Illustrations Of Child Anxiety, Erica G. O'Connell

Senior Honors Projects

I have found through my experience at The University of Rhode Island that two things are lacking; attention to the arts, and conversation about mental illness. Books are not only used as an educational tool for literacy among children but also as a way to introduce challenging topics. Combining my two majors, Art and Psychology, I aimed to create a real life tool that exposes children to the topic of mental health. The targeted age group for this book is between 4 through 6 years. By introducing this conversation to children at an appropriate level of learning, my hope is …

Walking Alone At Night, Amanda L. Grattan

Senior Honors Projects

One in four women face sexual abuse before the age of eighteen. One in five women are survivors of rape. With college campus rape allegations coming forward and being reported in mainstream and social media, the conversation about sexual assault and rape is extremely relevant and college students are taking a stand.

Emma Sulkowicz, a senior at Colombia University, took a firm stand when she developed a performance piece where she carried around the dorm room mattress, which she was raped on. Her story made it’s way to the mainstream media, including the cover of …

Review: Arts, Media And Justice: Multimodal Explorations With Youth (2013), Kelsey Greene

Journal of Media Literacy Education

No abstract provided.

Reimagining The Silver Screen: Contemporary Film Stills, Kyle Demartino

Senior Honors Projects

During the late 19^th century longer rolls of celluloid photographic film, and motion picture cameras were first introduced, which allowed for the capture of rapid sequences of still images at a relatively high speeds. The first films shown to audiences on a larger screen, although rudimentary, caused people to gasp or run from the cinema, as they believed the images on screen were real. As technology increased feature films progressed from only showing a simple static event to creating full stories spanning over various sets and containing multiple characters. With the advent of sound, filmmakers were given another tool …

The Fabrication Of Gender: Concept To Catwalk, Emily J. Pascoe

Senior Honors Projects

Gender, as I have come to understand it, is a vast, variable and personal response to one’s society and culture. As an interpretation of one’s biological sex it is a prominent aspect in our lives. Because of this prominence, attributes of gender are revealed in many forms. In relevance to fashion gender is manifested visually. Traits of femininity, androgyny and masculinity are rendered in dress and appearance.

I have portrayed these traits by using editorial fashion images to create a visual gender continuum. Using images from a compilation of current fashion magazines, whose target consumers are either men or women, …

Aids Art: Activism On Canvas, Lucy Sumners

Senior Honors Projects

Protest art is all around us. Whether we realize it or not, we are influenced by the political, social, or cultural messages that are within the artworks. I have always been interested in the effects of disease on a population and disease has had an effect on artists and the artworks that they produce throughout the ages. Today, AIDS has affected almost every single person on this planet and is a topic that enters political debates, affects the social constructs of society and carries many negative cultural connotations. AIDS first stormed through the United States in the early 1980s affecting …

From Script To Stage: A Costume Designer’S Perspective, Laura M. Gifford

Senior Honors Projects

In the process of designing the costumes for a show, it is important to understand the psyche of each of the characters. The completion of thorough research can give valuable insight into the characters, as well as details of the setting of the play. A designer then takes this information, in the form of photographs, journals, period documents, and modern analysis and combines it to achieve a unified vision of the play’s environment. They must then work with the director and other designers to present this vision to the audience. This semester, I had the opportunity to explore this process …