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Rhode Island School of Design’s Department of Furniture Design to Showcase Student Work in ON TIME at That’s Design!
contact: Jaime Marland, 401 427-6954 jmarland@risd.edu
Providence, RI — February 5, 2008 — Students from Rhode Island School of Design’s [RISD] Department of Furniture Design will showcase work at That’s Design! in Milan, Italy from April 16-21, 2008. RISD is one of eleven schools from across the world invited to participate. Featuring the designs, products and creative ideas of emerging young talent from leading design schools worldwide, That’s Design! takes place in Zona Tortona, and runs simultaneously with Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan.
Students from RISD’s Department of Furniture Design will showcase 12 pieces in an exhibition called ON TIME, created during a fall 2007 course, exploring the theme of time, or the lack of time from which we suffer.
“The course challenged the students to move beyond the traditional and the expected as they investigated various notions of time,” said the course’s instructor, Lothar Windels, Assistant Professor in RISD’s Department of Furniture Design. “Today the overload of information and activities can make it hard to concentrate on one thing, or get centered in general. Students were asked to observe the cultural aspects of time in this era and come up with their personal response, in the form of a small piece of furniture or product that either questions our current lifestyle or helps to slow things down. The result of the explorations is a selection of professionally executed working prototypes on display at That’s Design!.”
ON TIME will be on view at booth #6, and will feature 12 student pieces:
· Memento, a lamp defined by user interaction: by filling the lamp with personal objects of significance, the user adjusts the light and dictates the form [Julian Paul, BFA 2009]
· Quiet, a clock-driven music box, activated every 5 minutes by an abstract shape pierced in a continuously looping cardstock strip [Nora Rabins, MFA 2009]
· Clepsydra, a commentary on efficiency and speed, inspired by ancient water clocks: a quick glass of water requires 40 minutes of patience [Phillip Mann, MFA 2009]
· Hydroscopic Calendar, a device that correlates seasonal change to the expansion and contraction of wood, measured and indicated by a sensitive dial [George Dubinsky, BFA 2008]
· My Time, Your Time, a stool that examines chronologies and timekeeping techniques, contrasting organic and high-tech methods [Zeke Leonard, MFA 2008]
· Time Compression, a coffee cup that morphs into an ellipse and then a line, suggesting the action of time pressing in on a form [Sonia Baltodano, BFA 2009]
· Boundless, a display table for the Time Compression pieces [HyeJung Park, MFA 2010]
· Muted, a minimalist clock that indicates the passage of time in relation to its spatial context [Cara Blaine, BFA 2008]
· Attentive Information, a series of split-flap displays flips rapidly, suggesting the overwhelming pace and quantity of information in the modern world [David Thonis, BFA 2009]
· D/A Clock, a new take on the LED digital clock, manifesting physical dimension and intermediate states between 1 and 0 [Alvin Aronson, BFA 2008]
· Life Cycle, a series of transparent plates mounted in a table displays the life stages of a plant from seedling to decay [Nina Gills, BFA 2008]
· Family Tree Chandelier, photographs in tear-shaped pendants represent family members on this chandelier that grows with an expanding family [Henrik Soderstrom, BFA 2008]
Participating schools in That’s Design! 2008 include Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, Germany; Domus Academy, Italy; Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden; Lund University, Industrial Design LTH, Sweden; Politecnico di Milano, Italy; Strate Collége Designers, France; The University of Western Australia; Unitec New Zealand- School of Design; and University College Falmouth, UK. The 2007 event saw 80,000 visitors in 50 different locations, featuring 150 exhibitors.
About RISD
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has earned a worldwide reputation as the preeminent art and design college in the US. Today, with more than 22,000 alumni, the college enrolls roughly 1,900 undergraduates and 400 graduate students from the United States and almost 50 other countries, offering degree programs in the fine arts, architecture, and design disciplines, and art education. Included within the college is The RISD Museum of Art, which houses a world-class collection of art objects. For more information, visit www.risd.edu.
About RISD’s Department of Furniture Design
RISD’s Department of Furniture Design was created in 1995 to promote research in the field of furniture design. We are committed to redefining the furniture discipline to have an identity that is broad-based, incorporating the best relevant aspects of art, design, craft and production. Our curriculum is designed to explore contextual issues, investigate new challenges of human interface in contemporary environments, integrate new technologies, and address the complexities of our times, such as sustainability. We hope to serve as a center for research and a resource to promote dialogue within the field at large amongst designers, manufacturers, studio practitioners, academicians, curators and critics.
Graduates complete a BFA or an MFA combining theory, skills, context, research and professional practices. Together these define a broad-based pedagogy that directs vibrant new itineraries for innovation. As issue of contemporary life demand new forms, designers need to respond with objects that address theoretical, practical and emotional concerns, utilizing the continuum of the long history of furniture design as well as the available palette of new materials and technologies. Design education must anticipate and help shape these changes to promote quality of life and objects. The successes of our graduates showcase the result of a furniture design education that teaches not only the principles and practice of furniture design, but the enhancement of individual self-awareness and responsible citizenship.
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