Department Blog

Department news, events, and snapshots of student life at SVA in New York City.

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Oscar Night 2021: Video Storytelling During a Pandemic
Student Projects Allan Chochinov Student Projects Allan Chochinov

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.

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Orientation 2020: Our First Virtual Futuring Workshop!
Student Projects Allan Chochinov Student Projects Allan Chochinov

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.

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BIRTH REBORN: Using Design to Address Barriers to Equitable Maternal Care for Black Women
Student Projects, Thesis Products of Design Student Projects, Thesis Products 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.

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Grandma’s Teeth: An Exploration of Feminine Voice, Power, and Reclamation
Student Projects, Thesis Products of Design Student Projects, Thesis Products of Design

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.

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The Lockdown Playbook: Download, Color, and Donate
Events, Student Projects Allan Chochinov Events, Student Projects Allan Chochinov

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.

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HOME IN PROGRESS:   Designing Systems of Collective Care for Migrant Communities through Food and Multi-Sensory Experiences
Student Projects, Thesis Products of Design Student Projects, Thesis Products of Design

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.

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