Spring Sculpture Course at RISD Centers Performative Works Incorporating Steel

At a mid-semester critique in RISD’s Sculpture department, junior Taryn Liu 27 SC flinched when someone described the installation she created out of fresh flowers and a urinal as pretty. “I don’t like how pretty it is,” she explained. “Think of pretty as a tool, just like any other tool,” faculty member Isabel Mattia MFA 19 SC responded.

The new, interdisciplinary course Mattia is teaching, Metal and Performance, was designed to introduce students to the concept of “performance thinking” via steel objects fabricated in the Sculpture department’s foundry. While developing such metalworking skills as welding, cutting, forging, and bending, the class is conceiving original performance pieces that incorporate fabricated steel elements as essential ingredients in the work. Mattia sees the course not as a traditional studio offering, but a laboratory for structured experimentation. 

“We began with the body and then moved to broader concepts like object and context,” she says. “Different movements are associated with certain ideas, which I think of as a kind of lexicon or grammar. For example, constraint. Students are experimenting with different materials and movements that evoke a sense of constraint.”

The formal prompt for that assignment, “Expanding and Contracting the Gesture,” instructed students to identify a gesture to explore, analyze it in writing, and then design and create an object that constrains or constricts the gesture. Sophomore Eve Paige 28 SC selected the gesture of boxing and created a kind of garment that restrains the user’s ability to throw a punch. “We’re all fighting something stupid we shouldn’t have to fight against,” she explained during the crit.

Mattia described her brief performance as “Sisyphean” (or impossible to complete), and course TA Megita Denton MFA 27 SC said that watching Paige struggle against the garment brought to mind “a chrysalis and the fight to become who you are by breaking open that shell.”

Another assignment came in the form of an in-class workshop in which everyone brought three found objects to class. Each student selected an object and imagined a new use for it that subverted its essence, which they performed for the class. “These prompts are intended to act as springboards for ideas,” Mattia explains. “I try to create a space in which students are invested in each other’s work and able to help one another develop clear creative voices.”

Mattia describes the interdisciplinary aspect of the course as “generative and meaningful” and cites the work of junior Jasper Donner 27 PR, a Printmaking major, as a form of performance that is specific to her practice. In one performance, she etched a copper plate, which she used later to create a print. “She is developing a specific language that is turning into a real body of work in a short period of time,” says Mattia.

As the end of the term approaches, students are working toward creating their final projects exploring context—which Mattia defines loosely as anything from cultural commentary to identity. Digital + Media grad student Nicolás Franco MFA 27 DM, a Colombian national, is working on a piece using a kind of stationary bicycle he created that is almost impossible to pedal. “It feels like punishment,” one student noted. “You’re obligated to keep pedaling with no result.”

Franco is considering turning the piece into a commentary on US politics and setting up a public performance in which passersby are invited to pedal the bike but only if they have a US passport they can show. Mattia suggested that he test out different ideas via iteration, and Denton encouraged him and the entire class to lean into their ideas. “If you have something to say, say it,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. We’re here to support you.”

Top photo: sophomore Davis Bos takes his performance to the next level.

Simone Solondz
May 7, 2026