Anais Missakian

Professor
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BFA, Rhode Island School of Design

Before assuming the role of provost at RISD in July 2022, Anais Missakian was the Pevaroff-Cohn Family Endowed Chair in Textiles and professor and graduate program director of Textiles. She has held a full-time faculty position in Textiles for more than 30 years, including as department head for more than 15 years.

Additionally, in partnership between RISD and the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, Missakian served as faculty mentor and academic program director for the Sheikha Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Fellowship for Emerging Artists (SEAF). She is currently continuing in a consulting role for SEAF, now in its ninth year. Missakian also served as RISD’s dean of Fine Arts from July 2011 through August 2014, providing leadership and support to 10 departments.

In addition to faculty and administrative roles and service on numerous faculty search committees, Missakian served on the Brown/RISD Committee on Institutional Collaboration as well as the Fine Arts Acquisitions Committee, RISD Museum. She was a faculty advisor on the collaborative NIKE Skin Project; Techstyle Haus, Solar Decathlon Europe project; and Art in Embassies Rabat, Morocco Project.

A 1984 honors graduate of RISD, Missakian also attended Central/Saint Martins in London and Michigan State University. Before returning to RISD to start her teaching career, she spent six years in New York working as a designer for textile companies including Decorator’s Walk and China Seas.

As a design consultant for the textile industry, she designs textile collections for architectural interior applications. Past work includes design and production of printed and woven interior fabrics for Laura Lienhard, Inc. In addition, she and Lienhard created jacquard and printed upholstery fabrics for the Kreiss Furniture Company in San Diego, CA. Other clients included Sunbury Textile Mills, Quaker Fabric Corporation, Malden Mills, Martex, Macy’s and Westpoint/Stevens. Missakian’s other clients have included Sunbury Textile Mills, Quaker Fabric Corporation, Malden Mills, Martex, Macy’s and Westpoint/Stevens.

Most recently, Missakian was textile lead at Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), a nonprofit institute headquartered near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of the latest members of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) Institutes. She works with a team of material scientists, engineers, textile designers and product designers to collaborate on projects that focus on the transformation of traditional fibers, yarns and textiles into highly sophisticated integrated and networked devices and systems. She continues to collaborate with close colleagues at MIT, and co-authored a paper on acoustic fabrics that was published in Nature this past March.

Courses

Fall 2023 Courses

TEXT 484G-01 - TEXTILE SEMINAR I
Level Graduate
Unit Textiles
Subject Textiles
Period Fall 2023
Credits 6
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

TEXT 484G-01

TEXTILE SEMINAR I

Level Graduate
Unit Textiles
Subject Textiles
Period Fall 2023
Credits 6
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: TH | 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM Instructor(s): Anais Missakian, Jamall Osterholm Location(s): College Building, Room 510 Enrolled / Capacity: 12 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

This course focuses on issues in the professional textile field, such as the effect of production parameters and end use on design decisions. While helping students become more familiar with the wide ranging market, from the most innovative to the traditional, this course aims at providing an awareness of how one's own work fits into this context. Lecturers include professionals from the field, who advise on the studio work required in this class.

This course is a requirement for second-year Graduate Textiles Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Textiles

Wintersession 2024 Courses

IDISC 3340-101 - TOPICS IN EXHIBITION: TRANSFORMING DISCIPLINES
Level Undergraduate
Unit Architecture and Design; Fine Arts
Subject Interdisciplinary Studies
Period Wintersession 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

IDISC 3340-101

TOPICS IN EXHIBITION: TRANSFORMING DISCIPLINES

Level Undergraduate
Unit Architecture and Design; Fine Arts
Subject Interdisciplinary Studies
Period Wintersession 2024
Credits 3
Format Studio
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-01-04 to 2024-02-07
Times: W | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 02/07/2024 - 02/07/2024; M | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/29/2024 - 01/29/2024; TH | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/25/2024 - 01/25/2024; W | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/24/2024 - 01/24/2024; M | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/22/2024 - 01/22/2024; TH | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/18/2024 - 01/18/2024; TH | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/11/2024 - 01/11/2024; W | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/10/2024 - 01/10/2024; M | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/08/2024 - 01/08/2024; TH | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 01/04/2024 - 01/04/2024; TH | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 02/01/2024 - 02/01/2024; M | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM | 02/05/2024 - 02/05/2024 Instructor(s): Anais Missakian, Pete Oyler Location(s): Washington Place, Room 237 Enrolled / Capacity: 16 Status: Closed

SECTION DESCRIPTION

Participating students from seven distinct disciplines–Ceramics, Furniture Design, Glass, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture, and Textiles–and faculty from both the Fine Arts and Architecture+Design Divisions will work together to design a cross-disciplinary exhibition that embraces new approaches and perspectives on the interior through art and design for the Salone del Mobile, the largest annual global furniture fair in the world. From developing the conceptual framework, creating graphics and display to documenting the work, students will be involved in all aspects of exhibition design, planning, and execution. This course will make use of design exhibition history and its role in the contemporary, regular critique, and presentations by professionals working in exhibition design and curation.
Elective

Spring 2024 Courses

IDISC 3341-01 - TOPICS IN EXHIBITION: IMPLEMENTATION
Level Undergraduate
Unit Fine Arts; Architecture and Design
Subject Interdisciplinary Studies
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date

IDISC 3341-01

TOPICS IN EXHIBITION: IMPLEMENTATION

Level Undergraduate
Unit Fine Arts; Architecture and Design
Subject Interdisciplinary Studies
Period Spring 2024
Credits 3
Format Seminar
Mode In-Person
Start and End 2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: M | 9:40 AM - 12:40 PM Instructor(s): Anais Missakian, Pete Oyler Location(s): Washington Place, Room 237B Enrolled / Capacity: 18 Status: Open

SECTION DESCRIPTION

The Topics in Exhibition spring course follows the wintersession course, and is part two of a multiple-semester effort. Participating students from seven distinct disciplines–Ceramics, Furniture Design, Glass, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture, and Textiles–and faculty from both the Fine Arts and Architecture+Design Divisions worked together over wintersession to design a cross-disciplinary exhibition that embraces new approaches and perspectives on the interior through art and design for the Salone del Mobile, the largest annual global furniture fair in the world. From developing the conceptual framework, creating graphics and display to documenting the work, students will be involved in all aspects of exhibition design, planning, and execution. It will make use of design exhibition history and its role in the contemporary, regular critique, and presentations by professionals working in exhibition design and curation. The spring seminar serves to conclude the work, prepare for the exhibition, allow for student participation in Milan, create a report that details the experience for the President and Provosts’s offices, and present aspects of the experience to the RISD community.

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BFA, Rhode Island School of Design