Department Blog
Department news, events, and snapshots of student life at SVA in New York City.
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Rolling admissions still open! 〰️
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Products of Design Works with Veterans Affairs Around Women Vets
On the evening of September 26th, representatives from the Veterans Experience Office and the New York Harbor Healthcare System (VA Hospital) came to Products of Design to participate in a group discussion around women veterans. (This semester, the Design Research and Integration class is doing a 15-week project on the issues surrounding women vets.) Topics ranged from the perception of women military in our society, to their unique needs in accessing healthcare services throughout the VA system, to stakeholder eco-system mapping—trying to identify the main players in the area, along with learning about their top needs and interactions.
Futuring Workshop 2016: Envisioning New Devices and Behaviors For Future Scenarios
For our annual orientation futuring workshop, the Class of 2018 engaged in an all-day speculative design charette led by the Extrapolation Factory's Chris Woebken and PoD graduate Steve Hamilton. Following a lecture presentation on conceptual frameworks around the futuring and speculation, the students dove deep into creating artifacts and behiors around scenarios triggered by present and near-future scientific phenomena. Let's dive into the results below (and keep in mind that the team projects were conceived, prototyped, and performed "on the streets of New York" all within 4 hours!
OUTSIDERS: Designing Engagement With the Incarcerated
Marianna Mezhibovkaya's Masters thesis, Outsiders: Designing Engagement With the Incarcerated, explores how design can foster compassion for the marginalized and disenfranchised incarcerated population through the creation of social support services and products.
VAKIT: On the Elasticity and Subjectivity of Time
The objective of Adem Önalan’s master’s thesis, Vakit: On the Elasticity and Subjectivity of Time, is to reframe our relationship with time—identifying opportunities that lead people to spend time well—from recontextualizing time, to slowing it down through meaningful, memorable life experiences.
PERMANISM: Towards the Obsolescence of Disposable Furniture
Not more than 50 or 60 years ago, the idea of "disposable" did not exist; the physical objects in our lives were intended to be with us for a lifetime...or longer. Today, the convenience of disposability in the United States has become the status quo, and everything from packaging to electronics to even large-scale items like appliances and furniture are now considered throw-away. Spurred by our imperative for constant economic growth, our consumerist culture is having a detrimental impact on our environment. Judy Chi’s master thesis, Permanism: Towards the Obsolescence of Disposable Furniture, looks to reengage people with the physical products in their lives as "objects of permanence."
MASTERMINDS and the Art of Misbehaving
In order to become more brave and confident, MFA Products of Design student Eden Lew embarked on a year-long experiment to become a better designer by learning the ways of a criminal mastermind.
In her thesis, Masterminds and the Art of Misbehaving, Eden’s definition of a criminal mastermind alludes to the romanticized sector of criminals—including burglars, con men, hackers and heist planners. They are con artists who persuade victims into giving up money and valuables. They are craftsmen and tinkerers who decipher the mechanics of systems in order to later break them down. They are hackers who write inventive code to go around highly-secured firewalls, and drug cartel kingpins who run businesses as effectively as CEOs of major corporations.
This Great Violence: A Thesis on Race
The evening of March 2, 2012 will be remembered by Tahnee Pantig as one of the most violent and intimate evenings of her life. On that evening, she was physically assaulted in front of her home. After the assault, Tahnee was faced with a compelling question. “I asked myself, ‘had I somehow contributed to the conditions where this man felt the need to steal from me?’” This feeling of guilt drove her to use her thesis as a way to reconcile and understand the circumstances which led to the events of that evening, and compelled her to research these themes in her masters thesis, This Great Violence.
FINDING NORTH: Marrying Physical and Digital to Process Emotional Trauma
Products of Design MFA graduate Oscar de la Hera’s thesis, Finding North, plays at the intersection between Western, “social interventions”—such as help from friends, family or professionals—and Eastern, “introspective interventions”—such as yoga or meditation. The work aims to help individuals who have recently suffered emotional trauma transition to a more hopeful, happier, and healthier state of mind.
UNBOUND: Design for Paralysis and Disability
Products of Design MFA graduate Souvik Paul’s thesis, Unbound, seeks to empower individuals with spinal cord injuries and disorders (SCI/D), and to tackle some of shortcomings in treatment paradigms for SCI. His thesis journey began—violently—two weeks before his arrival at Products of Design in the fall of 2015. While driving her SUV down a California freeway, Souvik’s close friend, Carina, was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer and paralyzed, sustaining a spinal cord injury in the T2/T3 vertebrae. When visiting her in the hospital, Souvik saw how painful her adjustment to life in a wheelchair was. Believing in the power of design to help his friend, Souvik used his thesis as an opportunity to investigate how design could assist people with spinal cord injuries to recapture their sense of agency and identity in the face of such massive physical and emotional trauma.