Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons^™

Jadughar: The House Of Magic, Dhruvi A. Shah

Masters Theses

Jadughar or the House of Magic is what people call a 'museum' in parts of South Asia. The practice of museum making, at its origin, is the act of collecting, preserving, interpreting and representing a culture’s tangible and intangible heritage to make it accessible to diverse audiences. Since the early 19th century such practices have been performed at various kala bhandars (art centers) in India, without the need of a formal or institutional organisation. The British introduced the model of a ‘museum’ in South Asia, with the aim of not only preserving ethnographic collections, but also showcasing their power and …

Numb., Anna Rapson

Masters Theses

Social media platforms, from their conception, posed a break in the lived experience of the average human being’s day to day routines. Although access to information has always been shaped by portals into other lived realities—through photojournalism, print legacy media, news broadcasts both on radio and television—social media has posited a novel phenomenological architecture where borders between embodied reality and perception of lived experience are simultaneously blurred and reinforced. This morphed duality of consciousness positions the body and mind in tension, deconstructing pre-social media conceptions of the ontology of lived experience. In a digital world shaped by limitless input by …

Foveate, Dahlia Aggarwal

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how textiles can unsettle visual assumptions, encouraging a perceptual shift. Through weaving, upholstery, and spatial installation, the work stages a tension between what a surface appears to be and how it is encountered by the body. Through woven pattern, tactile texture, and trompe l’oeil textile surfaces, perception is something negotiated rather than fixed: the eye anticipates one reality while the hand discovers another.

Drawing on a range of sensations gathered from observing landscape formations and textures, it translates enduring scale and material qualities into an interior landscape of woven surfaces and textile-based furniture. Rather than serving as …

Care Ecologies Between Knots, Eliza R. Marris

Masters Theses

Discarded fibers like raw wool behave the way harm reduction does. Harm reduction resists stigma and works to move beyond assumptions and oversimplifications of substance use and addiction. Wool is irregular, complicated, and emotionally charged. It resists compression and maintains its own being even when pulled apart. Working with raw wool is in relationship with complexity, as is harm reduction.

At its core, harm reduction is grounded in thoughtfulness and empathy towards people, their lived experience, and its nuances. It is a witness to lives, memories, and imprints, acknowledging the entangled realities of addiction. Our detachment from fiber remainders, materials …

Lace Memory Lab, Xinyu Han

Masters Theses

Lace, originally developed from European religious garments, has long been treated as a decorative and secondary textile craft. With its delicate hand-weaving, intricate patterns, and lightweight quality, lace has been widely used in clothing and furniture, it has always remained at the edge of spatial design. This thesis focuses on lace as a material memory, exploring how its characteristics can be translated into architectural language and integrated into the spatial practice of adaptive reuse of old buildings. When I think of lace, I notice the similar nature of its craftsmanship and spatial concepts.

What happens when lace is no longer …

Fallen Leaves:The Unseen, Forgotten, Presences That Live In Us, Juhee Cho

Masters Theses

The fallen leaf is a material figure of the unseen, forgotten moments that have made us and holds us still while remaining outside our sight. In urban environments, fallen leaves are managed as seasonal waste, collected and quickly separated from everyday encounter. Yet within ecological systems, they continue to participate in cycles of regeneration, becoming the soil that sustains new life. This quiet continuation is unavailable to the eye, yet known by the body. As a proof of this, the leaf’s transformation reveals itself not to the mind, but to the hand. The curling fiber wears out, the deepening brown, …

Within The Archive: Jewelry And The Poetics Of Historical Trace, Fusheng Zhong

Masters Theses

Jewelry is a poetic translator, through which my intense and complex engagement with history is materialized. By reinterpreting the classical Chinese poem Bring the Wine(Li Bai,752) through paper-based materials, I translate poetry infused with personal traces and a distinct stance into wearable objects that embody the weight of history.

Through jewelry, an art form carried in close proximity to the body, I engage with history by staging acts of document visualization, transforming poems and archival fragments into visual and tactile records.  I suggest that in conditions of informational overload, individuals may gravitate toward reductive positions in order to avoid being …

Watershed Amendments: Assembling New Pervious Ground From Landscape Waste, Sophie Kaplan-Bucciarelli

Masters Theses

In Providence, Rhode Island, much of the downtown area is built over a vast historic tidal estuary. Though we no longer see the salt marshes, wooded bluffs, or meadows that once characterized this landscape, we recognize their absence in contemporary crises of urban heat, flooding, polluted soils and stormwater runoff, and habitat loss. These conditions are particularly acute along the city’s industrialized river corridors, where vacant lots and parking areas sit idle, their history paved over and potential constrained by limited imagination and resources.

These lots - already experiments in fill and land building after centuries of disturbance - can …

Textile Tectonics: Weaving Memory, Body, And Belonging, Jennifer Stageberg

Masters Theses

This work delves into the idea of home as a sensory experience. Separating the feeling of home from the physical space of the house I aim to create new spaces that give the occupant autonomy and foster intimate connections with the material of the architecture. This is done with the hope of creating homes more attuned to the human body that provide a sense of belonging.

I propose repositioning the home as an intermediary space between our bodies and our surroundings. Approaching it through the lens of textiles to explore the sensory experience a home could provide. A series of …

Menstrual Muses: Art, Storytelling, And The Care-Based Communication Of Menstrual Justice, Burcu Koleli

Masters Theses

Menstrual Muses is an artistic research project comprising a written thesis and a body of work developed across soft sculpture, ceramics, illustration, graphic memoir, digital media, and participatory workshops. The written component operates alongside the studio practice, outlining the project’s theoretical framework, methodology, and context while engaging questions of communication, accessibility, embodiment, and stigma. It situates menstruation within feminist discourse, examining how it has been culturally silenced, regulated, and shaped through systems of power.

The artistic work functions as research materialized through practice, responding to the central question of how my art can facilitate conversations around menstrual justice. It explores …

Archives Of The Future, Ka Oskar Ly

Masters Theses

Archives Of The Future is a practice-based thesis that invokes the archive and the future as simultaneous.

This research insists on the recentering of HMong Indigeneity and its own rooted traditions of HMong Queerness and HMong Feminism as ancestral knowledge systems.

They are the medicine. To recover their cosmological capacity is to traverse centuries of systematic eradication by empires and patriarchy.

I treat artistic making, community encounter, memory, and materials as equally valid ways of knowing and as collaborators. Field research from 2020 to 2026 moves through kinship and artisan teachings. It spans Southeast Asia, France, the United States, and …

Gray Sheep, Jennifer Richie

Masters Theses

When material comforts are not available or accessible, how can we care for one another with what is available? Can these methods be scaled up? How can we emulate the tight cultural bonds of people who relied on each other due to their isolation from cultural centers (like towns and cities)? Is it possible to be self-sufficient and not wealthy in the 21st century or has this ability died with past generations?

Using only scraps, found and discarded materials, and items from RISD’s Loop Lab and Second Life, I explore the skills and engineering that would have been a necessary …

Perceptual Heterotopia: A Spatial Experience Through Light, Media, And Textiles, Anne Yeoji Kim

Masters Theses

This study originates from sensory experience of observing sunrises and sunsets. Although the space in which these phenomena occur remains constant, it is perceived in different ways due to changes in the light that enters the space at these times. From these sensory experiences, the study began to inquire into the relationship between reality and the ideal. From this inquiry, it evolved into an exploration of how the ideal, or utopian, could be experienced through the senses within the realm of reality.

The concept of a heterotopia, as proposed by Michel Foucault, was used to expand upon these issues. A …

Immersive Stillness In Poetic Space: Textiles For An Uncertain World, Dora Hyunjung Kim

Masters Theses

In an era shaped by environmental crises, the erosion of seasonal rhythms, cultural uncertainty, and the accelerating pace of technological shifts, this thesis explores how textiles—through their tactility, atmosphere, and quiet presence—can serve as vessels for meditative and emotional spaces, which I refer to as "poetic spaces." In the midst of countless unpredictable variables and a rapidly evolving cultural landscape, there is a growing need for environments where silence and quiet reflection can unfold. Within this broader context, poetic space functions not merely as an aesthetic concept, but as a vital site for emotional grounding and inner restoration.

This research …

Till Tender, Karli R. Ehl

Masters Theses

Vulnerable, young, sensitive to pain, immature, not tough. These are some of the words and phrases that come up when you do a quick search of the definition of tender. I have felt every single one of these emotions over the past two years in depths I have not before. I have worked tirelessly, back and forth and in between, to try and figure out what it means to become oneself, while slowly untethering myself from the devotion to my Southern family. Trying to find the visual language for this process has transformed me into a tender being with no …

Folding Horizons: Knitted Textiles For A Mobile World, Yutong Li

Masters Theses

We have grown accustomed to living in flux—moving between cities, countries, languages, and digital spaces. Life no longer unfolds in a straight line, but in fragments and transitions, never quite settling. In this restless rhythm—shaped by fast trains, shifting skies, and the invisible current of the internet—we find ourselves suspended in a vast, woven network. Connection is constant, yet motion is unrelenting.

This project begins with a question: how can textiles reflect this state of in-between? I imagine textiles not as fixed surfaces, but as responsive skins—adaptive, expressive, and attuned to change. Inspired by the tensions of contemporary life—surveillance, shrinking …

The Dialectic Of Airless Space, Ophelia Arc

Masters Theses

The Dialectic of Airless Space is a cumulative, cross-disciplinary research project that explores ‘airless space’ as a somatic and psychological condition shaped by institutional environments. Unfolding over time through five interrelated books, the project weaves together writing, ephemera, textile sculpture, and drawing to archive the invisible architectures of bodily and mental experience.

Pressing Into Absence, Linda Sok

Masters Theses

Pressing into Absence traces the materials, processes, and works I have engaged with between March 2023 and May 2025, positioning historical and contemporary narratives in dialogue with one another. This book interweaves colonial-era source materials (from 1864- 1928) - writings, etchings, and paintings of Cambodia produced by persons from the United States of America and France - with personal anecdotes from my travels to Cambodia in 2024. These accounts are layered alongside speculative reflections in the form of text, sketches, mind maps, and material explorations. These archival remnants and personal experiences are folded together and positioned as equally reliable sources. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Metaphors In Materials And Imagery For Self Reclamation And Empowerment, Janice Lardey

Masters Theses

As an experimental multidisciplinary artist, my creative process draws inspiration from daily experiences and encounters with the mundane. I am particularly interested in West African textile cultural practices, specifically the use of symbols and basic geometric forms to communicate through materials (specifically fabrics) and the role these images and forms play in African culture. In my work, I am developing my own distinct vocabulary of symbols and patterns, inspired by these practices.

My artistic practice explores a wide range of themes related to women, sustainability, loss, everydayness, wear and tear, degeneration, the transitory nature of life, and material effects, often …

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, …

Reintroducing Hemp (Rongony) In The Material Palette Of Madagascar: A Study On The Potential Of Hemp Clay Components And Its Impact On Social And Ecological Communities., Henintsoa Thierry Andrianambinina

Masters Theses

When mentioning the word hemp, especially in the local language of Madagascar, the literal translation does not set it apart from marijuana, as they are both called “rongony” - creating the stigma around hemp as the negative stereotype of marijuana. However, the material has been used by the ancestors of Madagascar, as well as across cultures, in its fibrous form to produce fabrication like textile goods and packaging. During colonization, the prohibition of hemp intensified, and since then, any activity related to either of these plants is prohibited and will end in severe punitive measures. This thesis explores the strengths …

Tracing As Process, Lesley Su

Masters Theses

Tracing is a way to observe, document and translate, to be anchored in the physical working, to find personal occupancy in the built environment.

By establishing one-to-one relationships with the physical context, tracing enables us to comprehend objects in multiple dimensions. Through tracing, we can explore how two-dimensional drawings can be transformed into three-dimensional objects, and vice versa, objects can be documented through drawing to capture the essence of reality.

Based on materials and motion, research on tracing techniques guides me into how tracing could act as a process of art and architecture practice.

Translational Placemaking: The Diasporic Archive, Alia Varawalla

Masters Theses

Globalization and mass migration has propelled a hybrid existence, as individuals that occupy multiple geographies we live in a constant state of translation. Our museums and cultural institutions are in opposition to this; static, preserved and de-contextualized. At the intersection of printmaking and architecture, this thesis proposes a living archive to document the collective migratory journey across sites, materials, and hybrid identities. A network of centers for knowledge sharing and production centered on India and its diaspora. As art practices and people migrate, cultural production evolves with its context, gaining new meaning as it changes hands generationally and globally.

Moving At The Speed Of Trust, Sun Ho Lee

Masters Theses

Moving at the Speed of Trust is a workbook of strategies — practices, definitions, and techniques — to nurture community-building in support of inbetweeners who live between power structures and cultures and are often left out. Inbetweeners are those individuals whose lives are in transition through recent immigration or forced translocation from Asia to America.

These strategies revolve around threads of trust: kin, giggles, vulnerability, and shared experience. With these threads, we can question power. We can preserve stories, expand the ways we connect, shift perspectives on what is “standard,” and cultivate a community rooted in understanding. To understand each …