Department Blog
Department news, events, and snapshots of student life at SVA in New York City.
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PoD Students Win 3 NYCxDESIGN AWARD Awards!
Huge congratulations to Xiaohan Miao , Regena Reyes, and Hang Yuan for winning three NYCxDESIGN Awards yesterday!. You can see all the awards and watch the awards ceremony as well!
Oscar Night 2021: Video Storytelling During a Pandemic
For those who follow the department’s annual traditions, one of the most celebrated is “Oscar Night”—when the final outputs of Michael Chung’s Video Storytelling Course show as a final screening. Of course, this year, neither the celebration nor the films themselves could happen in “the real world,” and so the films were made in lockdown.
In Celebration of International Women's Day: An Assortment of Past Projects Designing for Women and Girls
In honor of International Women’s Day today, we’ve assembled a collection of projects designed by current students and past alumni—each centered around designing for women and girls.
Orientation 2020: Our First Virtual Futuring Workshop!
Last night wrapped up our 2020 New Student Orientation for the Class of 2022, and it was an amazing finish. Facitlitated by Products of Design alumni Steve Hamilton, Manaka Tamura, and Lucy Knops, students took to the 24 hour hackathon with extraordinary commitment and enthusiasm. The “reveal” of the work—typically students take the streets of New York City—rather took place on Zoom, with each participant inviting “friends of friends” to keep close with the intention that responses to the work are from people not in the field of design.
BIRTH REBORN: Using Design to Address Barriers to Equitable Maternal Care for Black Women
At a time when the maternal mortality rate in the US is soaring, Victoria Ayo's thesis, Birth Reborn: Using Design to Address Barriers to Equitable Maternal Care for Black Women, aims to give voice and power back to black women and mothers. Her project explores how design can build more awareness, facilitate the integration of ancestral knowledge, leverage the community, and help eliminate barriers to equitable birth outcomes. Victoria proposes new realities for collective care, bringing the wellbeing of mothers out of isolation and into solidarity.
Grandma’s Teeth: An Exploration of Feminine Voice, Power, and Reclamation
Stephanie Gamble’s thesis, Grandma’s Teeth: An Exploration of Feminine Voice, Power and Reclamation, is an in-depth examination of the physical, verbal, and emotional enforcement mechanisms of misogyny. Drawing from her own grandmother’s experience with the violence of misogyny, Stephanie designed a provocative body of work that interrogates and makes tangible how the enforcement mechanisms of misogyny are used to control and silence women. This thesis work proposes solutions that invert current power dynamics and challenge cultural values as a way to incite dialogue, ignite anger and impress upon men the substantial toll these experiences have on the daily lives of women.
2020 Core77 Design Awards: Stephanie Gamble Wins Speculative Design Runner Up
This year’s Core77 Design Awards were just announced, and recently-graduated Stephanie Gamble was recognized for Upbraid—one of the platforms she designed as part of her thesis work project. Congratulations Stephanie!
The Lockdown Playbook: Download, Color, and Donate
This year, Wanted Design (along with all of the NYCxDESIGN celebration) was cancelled, and quarantined at home, the students researched and contemplate what “design performances” they could inspire. Putting together a huge collection in what they branded The Lockdown PlayBook—the result is a set of strategies and activities to give us hope, and help us triumph over the everyday challenges of the current quarantine.
HOME IN PROGRESS: Designing Systems of Collective Care for Migrant Communities through Food and Multi-Sensory Experiences
Seona Joung, as a first-generation immigrant, has often dwelled in the in-between spaces of two geographies and cultures. Her thesis, Home in Progress: Designing Systems of Collective Care for Migrant Communities through Food and Multi-Sensory Experience, questions how design constructs and narrates a new relationship between people and multiple locations and thus serves as an ideal site to interrogate how immigrants relate themselves to the place of origin and the place of residence. Looking at the consequences of what migration does to the family relationship and social structure that influence our identity and health, her design work offers multilocal strategies that leverage sensory experiences, specifically triggered by food preparation and consuming.