RISD’s First Year in Florence Program Immerses Students in Culture, Craft, and Community

This fall, for the first time in RISD’s history, 20 first-year students began their undergraduate journey not in Providence, but in Florence, Italy. Following RISD’s Experimental and Foundation Studies (EFS) curriculum, the First Year in Florence program centers studio and liberal arts education within the Italian landscape. The program’s educators include Assistant Professor Rachel Rosenkrantz, who teaches spatial dynamics; Associate Professor David Scanavino 01 PT, who teaches design; and Associate Professor Cheeny Celebrado-Royer, who teaches drawing. 

“Our very first pilot with first-year students in Florence has been immensely rewarding for students, faculty, and those of us watching from Providence,” says Dean of Experimental and Foundation Studies Joanne Stryker. “Students are taking advantage of all the amazing opportunities of studying in Italy while also working on their academics as they would in Providence.” 

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For student Kal Kini-Davis 29 EFS, the transformative experience has built a solid foundation for the next four years. “It has been great to connect what we’re learning in art history and studios with what we see in real life. It makes me wish I could always be abroad, or at least that everyone got this experience,” Kini-Davis says.

The faculty tailored their core EFS teachings to the context of Italy. Rozenkrantz designed her course to draw directly from Italy’s rich craft traditions. Students explored historical musical instrument design by sketching the instrument collection at the Gallery of the Academy of Florence. At the Stradivari Foundation, the class observed violins at various stages of construction, gaining insight into their structural mechanics and the sequential building process. “The emphasis was on understanding how place, material, and cultural history inform creative practice,” Rosenkrantz says. 

Scanavino says that seeing art in the real world is a powerful experience. “Florence is home to some of the most culturally impactful objects that have ever been made,” he notes. He took students to the Uffizi Gallery; the San Marco Monastery, where they studied work by artist Fra Angelico; and Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan for an intimate encounter with Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper. “There are layers of history everywhere across the city,” he adds. 

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For one site-specific assignment, a student created 250 black-wax rubbings on paper taken directly from the street—cobblestones, sewer grates, historic inscriptions. It became a way of documenting her movement through the city. The box she made to hold the work was covered in marbled paper, a Florentine specialty. 

Celebrado-Royer led an expedition to Venice, where students explored the Venice Architecture Biennale, which opened conversations about space, design, and global perspectives in art. They also visited the Tatiana Trouvé exhibition at Palazzo Grassi, which allowed students to engage directly with contemporary installation and sculptural forms. 

“The city itself becomes an extension of the classroom,” Celebrado-Royer notes. “We spent time discussing the significance of studying art in a place with such a dense history—how being surrounded by Renaissance architecture and masterpieces can deepen or complicate one’s understanding of artistic practice.” 

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Arabella Hay 29 EFS notes that she anticipated the challenges of a typical first-year transition, but studying abroad added new layers. “Studying as a first-year in Florence has been one of the most intense and rewarding experiences of my life,” she says. “Every day has felt like a real balance between immersion and inspiration from the architecture to the history, the colors, the patterns, the sounds and smells.”

When this cohort of students transitions into classes in Providence come January, they’ll carry not only foundational making skills but also perspectives forged through cultural exchange. “We look forward to welcoming the students to Providence to continue their EFS studies during Wintersession and to sending another group of 20 students to Florence for a spring semester experience,” says Stryker.

Kaylee Pugliese
December 8, 2025