Please join us to hear about Jonathan and Sean's experiences post RISD. Both speakers currently work, and Jonathan founded Eqpd Gear in 2014. Their company is based in Twisp, WA and employs multiple RISD alums. Jonathan and Sean will share about their time at RISD and how it informed their later career path. They will also be sharing their experience of founding and growing a soft-goods company based in the rural U.S.

See you there!

Please join us to welcome the incoming 1st year grad students, and to hear from those of us who have been here for a little bit, as we share our journey to RISD and beyond!

The Thesis Exhibition is the final event that showcases the work of the thesis year students. It is held in the convention center downtown and features graduate work from all of the departments. All guests and students are welcome to join. We hope to see you there!

May 15 MID Public Thesis Presentations

RISD CIT, 169 Weybosset,  2nd floor, towards the front

The May 15 Public Thesis Presentations are open to friends, family, allies, advisers, the department, and school as a whole. Because the thesis grads will have passed through the fires of a defense already, the May 15 presentations tend to be relaxed and enjoyable. To help members of the department decide which presentations to catch, we have a list of project descriptions written by the grads.

Time and Project Description

9:00 - Adi Azulay: I am designing devices that recapitulate historic communication technologies, like smoke signals or the telegraph, to explore how objects mediate human interactions.

9:15 - Creama Yue Wong: Objects are humanizing. I am designing a series of daily objects combined with realistic human features to make geometrical and indifferent things more enjoyable and intuitively functional.

9:30 - Alyssa Mayo: I am investigating what is is about the physical that is fundamentally human by experimenting with replicas and archives of emotionally meaningful but troublesome objects.

9:45 - Xiaoxiao Jin: I am a design strategist. I have created a design matrix to help companies evaluate their current services and explore new opportunities. I will be showing three case studies of how this might work.

10:00 - Jiaxuan Jaren Li: I am designing products for younger Chinese generations to help them remember to think of traditional Chinese cultural values and to inspire them to carry out those values in the details of their lives.

BREAK

10:30 - Christina Chen: I am creating a line of discursive clothing that allows wearers to express cultural values while addressing what it means to be a person of color in America today.

10:45 - Ryan Ferguson: I am interested in how tools can become vehicles to transmit and complement the tacit knowledge of expert tool users. I am exploring ways to embed intelligence in tools, both physical and digital.

11:00 - Ala Tannir: Despite never being addressed synchronously, recent reports from the Mediterranean region suggest a sharp increase in jellyfish population in the water and the migration of humans across its surface. Towards the pursuit of justice and dignity for all species involved, this project proposes the possibility of an interspecies alliance between at-risk humans and jellyfish in the Mediterranean Sea.

11:15 - Sean Hou: I am interested in how changing manufacturing methods can change the role of design. As a case-study, I am developing a system to create personalized sneakers which merges good elements from different brands’ designs.

11:30 - Namrata Phirke: To help students develop healthy eating habits, I am designing a tool to help them manage their time more efficiently and prepare a healthy breakfast.

LUNCH

1:00 - Atulya Chaganty: By embodying the essence of talismans and mementos, I am designing a series of personal ‘digi-chanisms’, inspired by biophilia and pocket accessories, to help young veterans transition out of military service into civilian life.

1:15 - Wudi Hong: I am working on a connected service with digital devices to help us strengthen our closest relationships when living far from loved ones.

1:30 - Jerry Ding: My thesis is about helping people to build environmental consciousness by leading them to collaborate with nature as they make their own products.

1:45 - Court Skabelund: My thesis explores the inevitable future that sport will be required to address as our athletes evolve and express themselves in new ways. I am imagining the future of sports in a world where the gender binary of athletes has become blurred.

BREAK

2:15 - Kate Brandy: For people admitted to emergency rooms without urgent life-threatening illnesses, the experience of being stuck waiting is riddled with anxiety. I am creating a series of interventions to ease both patients’ and their companions’ mental and physical stress during these difficult times.

2:30 - Jin Cao: I am working on a product that will use light and sound to help design students concentrate when they work.

2:45 - Zixin Xiong: I am designing a cafe that provides physical activities to give patrons an opportunity to escape from digital devices and the Internet by creating a new culture of the joyfulness of face-to-face communication.

3:00 - Hanna McLaughlin My thesis focuses on co-designing experiences of self-care with young parents and toddlers to help navigate the double transition of parents returning to work and children spending time in new environments.

3:15 - Kasia Matlak: My thesis project is about empowering people, by redefining disability and providing tools to deal with loss.

BREAK

3:45 - Zhizi Liu: I am working on toys for adults, try to help adults to find the joy from assembling it, from this part, they might immerse themselves for a block of time to stay alone. Also, they can interact with it to remand them of humorous scenarios/stories.

4:00 - Tim Stoelting: I am presenting apocalyptic home furniture. I am using the furniture and overly sensationalistic branding and marketing displays to explore the emotional manipulation of consumers.

4:15 - Daniel Gioia: How might we design a way to achieve the social benefits of an exercise partner without being actively social? I am designing a connected fitness device that untangles the social motivators from the social discouragers in a fitness experience.

4:30 - Lokesh Zope: I am designing a framework to help digital (smart) objects be more mindful of the effects their presence have one us, so they can interact with us more meaningfully—‘emotional intelligence for objects’.

Join us for Open Studios. This is a bi-yearly event in which all of the grad students open their studios for guests to come visit and look at the inner-workings of the programs, and personal practices. It is a great chance for students to view work in other departments, and outsiders a chance to get a view into RISD. A selection of work will be displayed in the Grad ID space in CIT, and admitted students should feel free to join. 

There will be an after-party! Location TBA. See you there!

Where:

CIT/Mason Building
Second Floor

When & What:

6PM - 7PM
Meet and Greet with current MID students
Open Studios & mingling.

7PM - 8:30PM
Presentations from a few current students who will be talking about how they spent their time before RISD, and some of the skills, experiences, education, and hobbies that make them the designers they are today.

8:30PM - whenever
Afterparty at the GCB (Graduate Center Bar) at Brown University

Kunlé Adeyemi is an architect, designer and urban researcher. He is the founder/principal of NLÉ and Aga Khan Design Critic in Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His firm's overarching aim is to bridge critical gaps in human and physical infrastructures by creating networks and solutions that are closer to broader societal, environmental and economic needs. His works include Makoko Floating School, Serpentine Summer House in London, Waterfront Atlas in Venice and the African Water Cities research project.

Allan Wexler has worked in the fields of architecture, design, and fine art for forty-five years. He is represented by the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York City and has exhibited, taught, and lectured internationally.

Wexler’s career resists easy classification. In the late1960’s he was an early member of the group of architects and artists who questioned the perceived divide between art and the design disciplines. They called themselves non-architects or paper architects. 

The subject of Wexler's work is the built environment. He creates drawings, multimedia objects, images, and installations that alter perceptions of domestic activities. He investigates eating, bathing, sitting, and socializing, and turns these everyday activities into ritual and theater

Wexler is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016), is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and a winner of both a Chrysler Award for Design Innovation and the Henry J. Leir Prize from the Jewish Museum. He has had numerous national and international solo exhibitions, has lectured on his work internationally, and has been reviewed by major art and architecture publications. Wexler currently teaches at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design, a book on Wexler’s work and creative process, has recently been published by Lars Müller. Wexler's compelling thought processes unfold across each thematic category revealing a curious, comedic, analytical mind certain to instigate creative thought among designers and artists, and offer new strategies for examining the inhabited environment. The book features projects developed across the artist's career that mediate the gap between fine and applied art using the mediums of architecture, sculpture, photography, painting, and drawing.

Join us to experience a curated look at the graduate program at RISD. Students will be creating specific work for the event to highlight the themes and interests of the current student body.

Carlo DiSalvo's lecture "From Allies To Accomplices: Refiguring the roles of
design in 21st-century civics" will discuss the issues of civics—of
how we live together—are pressing matters of concern. In this talk,
Carl DiSalvo will share a series of themes and projects for
considering how designers might move from allies to accomplices in
addressing and participating in 21st-century civics. Together, we will
explore how our practices, professions, and institutions of design
might transform to be even more engaged and accountable in
contributing to how we live together, in these times.

This lecture is sponsored by the RISD Academic Affairs Academic
Enrichment Grant and the Industrial Design Department.

Carl DiSalvo is an Associate Professor in the Digital Media Program in
the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia
Institute of Technology. At Georgia Tech he directs the Public Design
Workshop: a design research studio that explores socially-engaged
design and civic media.

DiSalvo is also co-director of the Digital Interdisciplinary Liberal
Arts Center and its Digital Civics initiative, funded by the Mellon
Foundation, and he leads the Serve-Learn-Sustain Fellows program,
which brings together faculty, staff, students and community partners
to explore pressing social research themes (the 2016-2017 themes are
Smart Cities and Food, Energy, Water, Systems). He has a courtesy
appointment in the School of Interactive Computing, and is an
affiliate of the GVU Center and the Center for Urban Innovation.
DiSalvo also directs the Digital Media track of the interdisciplinary
M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction.

DiSalvo’s scholarship draws together theories and methods from design,
the social sciences, and the humanities, to analyze the social and
political qualities of design, and to prototype experimental systems
and services. Current research domains include civics, smart cities,
the internet of things, food systems, and environmental monitoring.
Across these domains, DiSalvo is interested in how practices of
participatory and public design work to articulate issues and provide
resources for new forms of collective action.

Please join us to hear Claudia Rebola and Charlie Cannon talk about their experiences as designers and faculty here at RISD. 

Please join us to hear Matthew Bird and Ayako Takase talk about their experience as designers and faculty here at RISD. 

Who were you before Grad school? Who are you now? Who do you want to become? What's your favorite Beyonce song? Come hear the grad students discuss all these topics and more. 

Join us in CIT for an exhibition of current 1st year Grad student work from the Fall semester. The students will be exhibiting work they have completed during their graduate studio that focused on Discursive and Experimental Design.

Who were you before Grad school? Who are you now? Who do you want to become? What's your favorite Beyonce song? Come hear the grad students discuss all these topics and more.