Coming up this Thursday/Friday right here at RISD …
v.1 Info Session this Sunday
v.1 is having its first info session of the year this Sunday. Anyone with something ready to share or just an ambiguous spark of interest is welcome!
Those who can’t make it are welcome to send a pitch (100 words or less) or query anytime and the editors will respond within a week. v.1 invites proposals in any genre, on any topic, and for any platform (poster, web, newspaper ...).
Visit volume-1.org to learn more.
Email: v1@risd.edu.
Last Chance for HIGHLIGHTS
HIGHLIGHTS: The RISD Graduate Thesis Book, an exhibition of 37 theses highlighting exemplary approaches to research, writing, and design, is up for just two more days—through Sunday, October 7, at Sol Koffler Gallery (CIT/169 Weybosset).
Here’s what people have been saying in the visitor book ...
"So strong, so important, so beautifully executed!"
"Makes me excited to tackle my own future thesis."
"Fantastic show! The more undergraduates who see this [too], the better."
"A resource every working artist should have access to."
"A strong display of the innovative thinking that will change the world."
”♡ Highlights”
We ♡ watching visitors dig in to the books and even do some writing in the space …
Once the show comes down, the thesis books will be back in the Library, and the accompanying Book of Thesis Books will soon be distributed around campus. Here’s an excerpt including the introduction and one thesis from each of the five categories (academic thesis, monograph, project document, mosaic essay, and artist’s book). We’re looking at print-on-demand options, so stay tuned or contact jliese@risd.edu if you’d like a copy.
Grad Thesis Book Workshops
A&L and the Fleet Library welcome grads to our series of Fall workshops—an opportunity to come together across departments to imagine and develop the possibilities for your thesis book.
Workshops are on Thursday nights from 7-9 PM, on the 2nd floor of the Fleet Library (take the elevators to the right of Portfolio cafe), in room 228.
September 27
Process Matters: Angela Lorenz Opens Her Archives
October 25
Artistic Research: Reading the Literature with Ellen Petraits
November 15
Evolving Thesis Language: Anne West Guides Writing Prompts
November 29
Form for Content: Imagining Book Design with Marcus Peabody
See e-mail invitations for details about each workshop.
Open to grads in all programs, thesis year or not.
Come to one or to all.
Please contact Jen Liese (jliese@risd.edu) to RSVP (helpful but not required) or with any questions.
We’re posting here just after our first workshop with artist Angela Lorenz, who shared some of her incredible artist’s books and her extensive process archive … thanks, Angela!
English for Art & Design Workshops and Drop-in Hours
Multilingual learners: advance your English for academic purposes in art and design. Workshop topics include vocabulary development, speaking about your work, and reading and writing assignments.
5-week workshop series:
SUNDAYS 10 am – 12 pm
September 23, 30; Oct. 7, 14, 21
Drop-in for one-to-one or small-group meetings:
Weekly drop-in hours:
WEDNESDAYS 12 - 1 pm
All at A&L (College Building 240), facilitated by A&L's Assistant Director for Multilingual Learning, Maya Krinsky.
Questions or registration e-mail: multilingual@risd.edu
HIGHLIGHTS: The RISD Grad Thesis Book
All graduate students at RISD write, design, and submit a Master’s thesis book—a lasting record of their work, process, research, and ideas. HIGHLIGHTS features 37 recent Master’s thesis books that are exemplary both overall and for their “highlights”—particular qualities of research, writing, documentation, and design. It accompanies the publication of the first Book of Thesis Books, a guide in which annotations illuminate the many virtues of each book. The exhibition focuses on some of the most salient highlights themselves, extracting them out of the books’ pages and onto the walls and pedestals for close study. (The thesis books are there, too, of course, so stay and read awhile.)
Curated by the Center for Arts & Language, with generous support from the Graduate Commons.
September 4 – October 7, 2018
Sol Koffler Gallery
169 Weybosset Street (CIT)
Open daily 12 – 8 PM
v.1 Is Out and About!
Out ... on the streets (find it at the Grad Show and foyers and tabletops everywhere)
About ... evolving nature, understanding the world, biting ponies, and so much more
v.1, RISD’s graduate-student publication, launched in 2016 with a mission “to represent an interdisciplinary community of conversation that surfaces and documents ideas, themes, discussions, debates, work, and aspirations of graduate study while they are still fresh ... and contribute to the wider public discourse around art and design.”
v.1’s form and content were always meant to change (it’s always “volume 1”). It’s been a perfect-bound journal, a newspaper, and a website (volume-1.org). We’ve made podcasts, posters, and live publishing events. Next fall, it will change in a new way: it will become a publication by and for both graduate and undergraduate students.
Keep an eye out for calls for submissions in September; or if you can’t wait, stop by A&L or e-mail v1@risd.edu.
THAD's Spring Lectures
Theory and History of Art and Design (THAD, formerly known as HAVC) is running two inspired series of lectures this spring. See the schedule here, and don't miss the Art History Research Colloquium keynote, coming up this week.
Two Summer Opportunities in Art Writing and Publishing
Two summer residency opportunities, both with April 29 application deadlines:
Triple Canopy's Publication Intensive: a two-week series of workshops for writers, editors, designers, and publishers focused on "networked forms of production and circulation," based both in New York and here at the RISD Museum.
The Islands: a two-part, six-week residency for art writers and artist-writers—including those working in criticism, poetry, and experimental forms—that takes place on remote Fogo Island and urban Toronto Island.
As always, A&L's tutors are here to support your application-writing process.
Writers at RISD: Hedge Coke and Jhave Johnston
Who are art and design magazines actually for?
Come to this workshop led by Contributors Inc. and let's figure that one out together.
Monday, March 12, 2:00-4:00 pm
Macaulay Room, Fleet Library
Contributors Inc. (Phoebe Stubbs and Mimi Cabell) is a collective that works with art and culture magazines as material, engaging them as both archives of the art world and sites highlighting shifting commercial and political trends. Contributors Inc. creates interventions, publishing projects, artwork, and workshops exploring the relationship between a publication’s history and its present.
For this workshop, participants will critically engage with several magazines of art and design. Looking at evidence in their pages and on the internet, we will examine content, contributors, structure, and funding and annotate what we find. We will then discuss our findings as a group, including issues raised by the exercise and thoughts on the relevance of such publications to participants’ practices.
Spring English Language Support
Facilitated by Assistant Director for Multilingual Learning, Maya Krinsky, the following workshops are designed to improve English language skills in our context of art, design, and liberal arts education. Please contact multilingual@risd.edu with questions or to RSVP (appreciated but not required).
Academic Skills Series for Multilingual Learners
Sundays, 10 am–12 pm, Center for Arts & Language (CB 240)
February 18, 25, March 4, 11, 18
Critique Group for Multilingual Learners
Mondays, 6:30–8 pm, Center for Arts & Language (CB 240)
March 5 – May 14
English Language Support Drop-in Hours
Tuesdays, 12–1 pm, Carr House conference room
February 20–May 15
Fridays, 12–1 pm, CIT 102 (Grad Lounge)
February 16 – May 11
Publishing and Practice: A Conversation
Publishing and Practice: A Conversation
Thursday, March 1, 6:30-8:30 PM, Old Library (College Building 521)
Andre Bradley's Dark Archives (interior pages)
Editing journals, essaying on art, design, and events, experimenting with “publishing as artistic practice” … artists and designers are contributing to public discourse like never before. Come hear from three RISD alumni working in and around publishing about their
experiences—and share your own.
6:30-7:30 Presentations and Q&A
Andre Bradley (MFA Photography, 2015)
Philadelphia-based artist and author of Dark Archives,
an “autobiography in fragments” published by Image
Text Ithaca Press
Rachel Ossip (BRDD Comp. Lit./Graphic Design, 2015)
Artist, designer, and writer living in New York; manager,
Paper Monument; production manager, art editor, and contributor to n+1
Phoebe Stubbs (MFA Glass, 2011)
London-based artist and art writer; co-editor of
Pink Jacket; managing editor of the Journal for Artistic
Research; former editor at Black Dog Publishing
7:30-8:30 Dinner and Conversation
Bring your own publications to share.
***RSVP to jliese@risd.edu by Friday, February 23
Grad Thesis Book Design Workshop
Grad Thesis Book Design Workshop
Sunday, February 18, 3-6 PM, Fleet Library, Macaulay Room
This Sunday, take a break from writing your thesis to plan the book's design.
Marcus Peabody, grad in GD and grad assistant in the Center for Arts & Language, will guide you step by step through the elements of thesis book design, from overall aesthetic to format to grid to typography to image strategies. He will share thesis book samples along the way, lead short exploratory exercises, and point you toward paper, printing, and binding resources.
RSVP appreciated but not required: jliese@risd.edu.
Below: spreads from Jennifer Garza-Cuen (MFA Photography 2011), Wandering in Place
Unbound Is Back!
One of our favorite events is fast approaching: Unbound, RISD's annual art book fair. Mark your calendars for April 7, and if you're interested in exhibiting, jump on it: as of this AM, there are only 10 tables left! Register here.
Spontaneous Statements
Artist statements are so often labored over for weeks, months, years even. Last fall, we noticed a couple of very public examples of what we'd like to call "spontaneous statements."
Exhibit A: Kara Walker's much noted statement (scroll down in this link) accompanying her fall New York show, which puts off all pretense of describing her work but expresses with the very power of her work the intertwined exhaustion and fury of standing against racism. Maybe she labored over this statement, but it feels like it came out in a single breathless burst.
Exhibit B: Huang Yong Ping's statement in response to the Guggenheim's pulling the live animals in his Theater of the World from the work, leaving just its armature (see here). This one is scribbled on an Air France air sickness bag—it doesn't get much more urgent than that.
Lately we've seen a few spontaneous statements around A&L, too. Here's one we love by Kathryn LaMontagne (Textiles), below. If you have an artist statement—spontaneous, refined, or anywhere in between—come on in; we'd love to hear about it.
