Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons^™

Surfacing: A (Loose) Manual On Unlayering / Stuff-Making And Hypervisibility, Zoë Pulley

Masters Theses

This is a (loose) manual on a method I like to refer to as surfacing.

A method that synthesizes narrative through the use of surfaces such as textiles, paper, web & video to reveal the spectacularly ordinary parts of Black life within a growing design practice.

A method I (currently) practice in three (evolving) steps:

Unlayering and piecing together stuff (rememory)

Acknowledgment of ancestry through stuff-making (kin)

Consciousness of oneself and the place / time / space in which the work is being disseminated (hypervisibility)

This is a manual that profiles a (current) design practice of a Black female maker …

A Room Full Of Pigeons And Three Spectators, Dina Khorchid, Dina Nazmi Khorchid

Masters Theses

My work explores themes of identity politics, domesticity, land and memory access - in relation to my own lived experiences as a Palestinian refugee, a daughter of a missing war casualty and an artist.

In this thesis book, I present a cumulation of thoughts, emotions and findings, along with a selection of works from the last two years.

During my time at the Rhode Island School of Design, messenger pigeons took over my studio, channeling physical and mental realms of grief and remembrance. By looking closely at the bird’s aesthetics and behaviorisms in my first semester, their resting deceased bodies …

Partial Eclipse, Christopher Pak

Masters Theses

A meditation on the interior and exterior in physical space can help us to think about the relationship between the self and other. This thesis explores the boundary between the inside and outside, and between absence and presence through silkscreen printed fabrics. Using an improvisational process guided by chance, residual marks are layered to create an illusion of ephemeral architecture. These textiles offer an experience of time and space that exists between interior and exterior worlds.

Iteration One, Julian Suver

Masters Theses

In the fashion world, companies put a lot of effort towards classifying their products as luxury to the consumer. The age of social media has aggrandized collaborations with famous artists, endorsements by celebrities and even the appointment of pop stars as directors of the biggest fashion houses in the world, as if this makes the clothing better. I can't help but question what luxury actually means when you strip away marketing and if this status can be given or taken away. If a silk dress gets irreparably stained or ripped is it still luxury? Is an old band T-shirt found …

Soul Furnace / فرن الأرواح, Isa Ghanayem

Masters Theses

“This is the good washing, this is (the washing) which separates the dirty body from the pure body. This is like silver mixed with lead, it is separated from it by this (process): one makes for it a cupel of bones, which is what is called the “head of the dog” and of which the common name is kūja-which is the crucible—and this must be made of burnt bones. One melts the silver in it, one gives it a strong fire: the cupel will absorb and receive the lead, the fire will make its subtle (part) fly away and extirpate …

The Meaning Of A Choice, Julie-Louise Zeitoun

Masters Theses

If you are disabled or disadvantaged, you will be dismissed and stifled. Few people will actively care for your struggles. As a person with autism, I was deeply fearful of the persecution I had faced throughout my life; it was a fear that followed me with terrifying determination. I desperately wanted to blend into society. So I designed myself to be devoid of any weakness, and productivity was the way I chose to conceal any difficulties I faced. It was a way to measure my success — a way to measure my normalcy.

Standard medical textiles are generic, cumbersome devices. …

Making Then Meaning, Ben Denzer

Masters Theses

This is an artist talk contained within a book. It is 816 pages and 49 minutes long. Closed captions run across the spreads. A video of this talk can be watched on bendenzer.com/making-then-meaning

At RISD, I’ve been prompted to expand the scope and tools of my practice and to reflect on questions of meaning in my work.

I spend my days making things, but I’ve never really had good answers to questions of why I make the things I make, or what their meaning is. I don’t think there are simple answers to these questions.

I think meaning comes from …

Step 10, Jinhong Cai

Masters Theses

Step 10 is an experiment on provoking empathy through

abstracted elements within my studio practice. I am

proposing to craft an emotional piece without leaning

on my identity. This written thesis consists of two parts:

narrative prose and an explanation of my studio practice.

While the installation is entirely devoid of cultural or

personal references, this text-based thesis is full of them

because it is intended to inform whoever is interested in

learning more about the motive behind this creation.

The questions I bought into the thought and creation

process are: Can a piece of art still successfully bring

out …

What Do We Stand For?, Lauren Koven

Masters Theses

I am exploring constructed realities and dismantling binaries and dualities. Much of this work is investigated through, but not limited to, language, gender, sexuality, race, and performativity.

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.

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 …

Material Encounters: Making Memory Beyond The Mind, Ariel Wills

Masters Theses

Can acts of making carry the memories of our embeddedness within the world? This thesis explores how making things can nurture a sense of kinship that cuts across the organic and inorganic, erasing the distinction between living and dead, material and spiritual. Through handwork such as art-making, sewing, knitting, cooking, woodworking, and beyond, the burden of remembering and of archiving is shared across human and non-human bodies, cultivated through practices of making, and through the materials themselves. By recounting the stories of my family’s experience as Jewish immigrants in the United States, I aim to reveal how their domestic practices …

Transformers: Versatile Apparel For A Sustainable World, Zihan Amy Peng

Masters Theses

This collection and book were inspired by a TED talk called “I broke up with fast fashion and you should too” by founder of The UpCycle Project Gabriella Smith. After I heard this inspiring talk, I reflected a lot on my own habits of clothes shopping during different life stages, how I became a fan of fast fashion, and how Covid-19 has impacted the way I shop and dress. I soon dug further into the ugly truth about the fast fashion industry’s environmental impacts, how their marketing strategies lure the general public to consume more products, and potential solutions to …

Out Of Bounds, Luciana Iwamoto

Masters Theses

Humans have an inescapable desire for rationality, structure, and order. We seek efficiency and certainty in our individual and communal lives. We have been encouraged to believe that most things are under our control until something strikes us and brings to consciousness the limits of our knowledge. It’s usually nature’s wild power that overwhelms our faculty of reason and reminds us of our limits. Philosophers called this sensation of overwhelm in the face of nature the sublime experience. In modern cities, surrounded by skyscrapers, we are reminded of our own technological achievements, while nature feels disconnected and distant. Yet, if …

Textile Architecture, Zoe Yates

Masters Theses

The escalating climate crisis has exposed many cracks in conventional building systems. Modern architectural processes contribute to climate change by consuming high levels of energy throughout the building cycle—from sourcing materials to construction to energy use once buildings are in use. Conventional architecture’s emphasis on heaviness and permanence makes these problems unavoidable. Light, temporary architecture is a solution to both the environmental impacts of the practice (the cause) and to the challenges of living in ever more impermanent situations (the effect). As climate change continues to manifest in rising global temperatures, sea level rise, drought, unpredictable weather, and natural disasters, …

Building Narratives: Instilling Old Stories In New Spaces, Sharanya Aggarwal

Masters Theses

Here in Gurugram, tall, uniform, cold, imposing buildings loom over a newly developed metropolis, futilely competing with each other to become remarkable landmarks of the near future. Here, I close my eyes and fondly remember the celebratory streets and inextinguishable, vibrant atmosphere of New Delhi, one of the oldest cities in the country, which I used to joyfully call my home. Opening my eyes, all I see when I look outside my window are either vast spans of bare land or vertical skyscrapers and construction sites. Memories of home, objects, places, and streets are my living archive of my past …

Dal And Rice, Anushka Divecha

Masters Theses

I have always been a nostalgic person. I have boxes of old photographs, letters, birthday cards and objects from significant days in my life. I have confetti from different concerts, friendship bracelets and old diaries. While typically not represented by keepsakes, memories of food are some of my strongest. They encompass all five senses, which is perhaps why they are so powerful. Every time I smell a spice or taste something familiar, I am instantly transported to a certain place and time.

As a textile artist, I use materials, textures, imagery, and senses to evoke place and time. This year …

Insecurities: Tracing Displacement And Migration, Hammad Abid

Masters Theses

“Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Migration,” the title of both my thesis work and thesis book, calls attention to displacement and forced migration as a disruption in the continuity of place, relationships, identity, memory, and time. Through a collection of textiles, I try to capture the psychological, social, and physical effects of forced migration and communicate the impact of political violence on identity and coexistence.

In this book, I position myself within the context of how the current Indian government is attempting to rewrite the nation’s history and distort India’s pluralistic story. I tell a personal narrative of displacement in harrowing …

A Little More Like Water, Jacqueline Scott

Masters Theses

“The waves broke on the shore.” These are the final words of Virginia Woolf’s 1931 novel, The Waves, which follows the passage of a day at the ocean’s shore. The book serves as a backdrop for the life of six characters: Bernard, Susan, Neville, Rhoda, Louis and Jinny. Interludes are interjected between the chorus of these characters, depicting the arc of life from early childhood to old age and death. The relentlessness of the rhythm of the tide, at first pulsing and hard to ignore, becomes ceaseless white noise that eventually falls to the background. The day’s initial drama—a spectacular …

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 …

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 …

Floating, Nina Shishkina

Masters Theses

My writing is influenced by the concept of Montage. It has bits of readings, thoughts, memories. Everything is carefully picked and curated to inform the viewer of the ideas behind the work.

This book is aiming to explain the context of the time and space I was born and raised. The nineties in Russia were an extremely dynamic space. The flow of information, ideas, cultural events were enormous. Everything coexisted. the real democracy and freedom, as now it would be described. It was a dark time, full of hope and expectations.

Unfortunately for the reader, this text is not that …

Awe-Struck, Emily Robertson

Masters Theses

Awe-struck is an exploration at the intersection of embodied and situated cognition, sight, sense-making and nature with an additional layer of artistic interpretation and emotional response. Adapting elements of Terrapin Bright Green’s biophilic design principles, this work pushes past the well researched benefits of incorporating nature into a designed space, to uncover an individual’s personal connection to an environment. The connection is multi-faceted—layered with observations of space, color and location, filtered through a lense of physical, philosophical and psychological reactions and then translated into an individual personal history. With a specific focus on wild spaces, where humans have designed and …

Mais Fica : More For Me, Gabrielle Marie Ferreira

Masters Theses

This book is as much a part of my thesis as the fabrics and patterns themselves, stitched together from moments and memories. You may take these stories with you, but those hidden moments between my words will always remain for me and me alone. No matter how many people take these stories with them, still mais fica.

Capes Make The Man, Khalid Mezaina

Masters Theses

‘Capes Make The Man’ is a project that provided me with the opportunity to grow as a designer and an artist. Over the last two years at RISD, I’ve frequently asked myself questions about my place and role as a man in the United Arab Emirates, and what awaits when I move back after graduating. Using personal narratives and cultural symbols from home, I bring to life the archetypes I carry as a mature masculine – my king, warrior, magician, lover and dancer. The end result is a series of bold, wearable capes, resembling stage costumes worn by pop stars …

Cosmic Whatever, Cement Gardens, Luminous Shade, Winifred Vaughan

Masters Theses

My work is an assemblage of disciplines, reductive processes, and accumulated materials interpreted with a painterly quality. Slipping away faster than we can grasp, the unrelenting forces of time propel us forward. Memory fragments our chronologies, transforming our existence into a collaged fabric. Layered transparencies allow the three chapters of this thesis, Cosmic Whatever, Cement Gardens and Luminous Shade, to bleed into each other turning them into composed cycles. These unlikely combinations permit freedom to experience a narrative that is both vast and intimate.

Summer Peaches And Salt-Tinged Fog, Carolina Jiménez

Masters Theses

The pieces that I create are monuments of the mundane; they are both garments and--through their installation--a place as well. They are portraits of loved people, embodied through hand labor and industrial processes. In this project I destabilize the idea of a memory palace--an imagined rational space which holds memory--and replace it with an ever-expanding memory atmosphere. From a palace of marble and bronze to a fog of salt tinged color, a sky turning, like a cut plum, from orange to purple, music carried on the breeze.

I map individuals, qualities of light, flashes of color and material. Specific moments …

The Evolution Of Ornament, Charlotte Ngaio Fairless

Masters Theses

The Evolution of Ornament is a visual exploration of Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, abstracted into three textile panels representing the allure of textural ornamentation. The fragmented shapes depicted are gathered together into asymmetrical layouts that reference dissection and bird plumage. The parallel themes of glamour in the natural world, and the pulsing vivacity of flora and fauna, emerge as a vehicle for the contemplation of the innate irrationality of desire. The viewer is seduced through neon color palettes, tactile materiality, and considered placement of specifically amorphous shapes. They are intended to simulate in the viewer the reaction of a …

Haptic Wonder : The Sensation Of Exquisite Craft, Anjuli Berstein

Masters Theses

I reinterpret traditional woven techniques to create permeable handcrafted screens, by using archival research of historical passementerie and gauze structures. Conceptually, these textiles are an exploration of how wonder can be reached through exquisite craft, a result of valuable raw materials combined with fine hand manipulation. I attempt to distinguish a kind of wonder that exists as a tactile sensation based on haptic sight of minutia, versus the sublime as an experience of optical sight of distant objects.