Rhode Island School of Design’s 2015 Annual 'Graduate Thesis Exhibition' to Open at the Rhode Island Convention Center on May 19

The thesis work of 178 students completing graduate degrees from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) will be on display in RISD’s 2015 Annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition at the Rhode Island Convention Center from May 20 – 30, 2015. The exhibition includes work by graduate students in Architecture, Ceramics, Digital + Media, Furniture Design, Glass, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture, Jewelry + Metalsmithing, Landscape Architecture, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Textiles and Teaching + Learning in Art + Design.

The exhibition, located in Hall A of the Convention Center in downcity Providence is free and open to the public daily from 12-5 pm (9:30-6 pm on May 30, the day of RISD’s Commencement), with a public opening reception on May 19 from 6-8 pm.

The work selected represents the culmination of each student’s experience in RISD’s dynamic and diverse graduate programs. The 28,000-square-foot space will be custom-constructed, with more than 1,500 linear feet of walls forming a network of smaller galleries. The unique configuration of this generous space provides remarkable opportunities for graduate students to show multiple pieces or large installations from their final thesis representing two or three years of research, experimentation, critical thinking and production.

An online gallery featuring images and narratives on students' final thesis projects, enabling viewers to gain insight into the thinking and process behind the work, will go live in May at www.risd.edu/thesis

An exhibition of selected works by second-year graduate students will be held at Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery at 169 Weybosset Street. The installation will open to the public on May 29 at noon and will remain on view through May 31 from 12-8PM.

About RISD’s Graduate Programs

The Division of Graduate Studies represents RISD’s 16graduate programs and more than 400 graduate students from around the world enrolled in art, architecture, design, digital media, and art education. It promotes a dynamic and interdisciplinary culture of inquiry and research, study and speculation,close attention and critical making, and reflective and ethical practices responsive to the times and adaptable for the future.

RISD is an active environment for graduate students to clarify their ideas, develop their work and deepen their commitment to creative practice and cultural leadership. The graduate experience at RISD also provides a constellation of relationships in which students care about each other and for each other’s work and development as artists and designers. This can be found both in the studio and classroom, but also in the many ways that graduate students initiate and lead in student government, collaborative publications and partnered projects, and as collaborators and curators of exhibitions and public programs at RISD – and in communities and contexts beyond the college.

Working with dedicated and accomplished teachers, visiting artists, designers, scholars and extremely perceptive peers,students are challenged and inspired by the questions involved in creating and analyzing new work. Students are encouraged to embrace the compelling dimensions and complex pleasures of art and labor, conviction and doubt that stimulate adaptive and active practices.

Graduate work at RISD requires passion and persistence, the willingness to take risks and an openness to reciprocity. Through their work represented in the Graduate Thesis Exhibition, students broaden their ideas and confirm their commitment to the pursuit of consequential work that confirms why art, design and culture do, indeed, matter to us all.

To learn more, visit: Graduate Studies