Experimental and Foundation Studies
Based on the philosophy that all first-year undergraduate students benefit from a shared understanding of RISD’s approach to studio learning, freshmen follow the same studio curricula—known together as Experimental and Foundation Studies (EFS).
Each of the three programs meets one full day per week, with students also working on challenging assignments outside of class time. Faculty work closely with students, offering ongoing guidance and feedback. Group critiques help students learn to present their own work while supporting that of their peers.
EFS studios
At RISD students pursue drawing as both a powerful way to investigate the world and an essential activity intrinsic to art and design practice. The studio becomes a laboratory of varied and challenging activities in which to investigate materiality, imagined situations, idea generation and the translation of the observable world.
In this studio, students explore how to organize visual and other sensory elements in order to understand perceptual attributes and convey meaningful messages through objects, spaces and experiences.
This studio-based inquiry into physical, spatial and temporal phenomena considers force—the consequence of energy—and its effect on structure. Students explore physical, spatial and temporal phenomena through a range of analog and digital processes.
In the studio
Faculty members work closely with students, emphasizing rigorous critical inquiry and independent learning while offering ongoing guidance and feedback. Assigned projects in each studio encourage exploration, questioning and risk-taking.
At the end of each project, critiques are held so that you can discuss your intentions and processes, and reflect on the capacity of the work to embody ideas and emotions.
Student work
Interdisciplinary concentrations
CTC integrates instruction in writing programming languages with critical, historical and theoretical frameworks for understanding the technologies that shape society and culture, giving students opportunities to incorporate digital technologies into art and design practices.
This concentration offers a way of engaging deeply with the notion of drawing as speculation. Highlighting the discipline’s connection to innovation and discovery, it encourages students to see drawing as both integral to all of art and design, and as a medium for creating resolved works of art.
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