RISD

Grad student and longtime “sneaker head” Atulya Chaganty at Reebok’s headquarters in Canton, MA.

Atulya Chaganty MID 17 has loved everything about athletic shoes for as long as she can remember. “Eight-year-old me wanted to yell, ‘I want to be a sneaker designer when I grow up!’” but at the time she didn’t think her family would take that idea seriously. But in doing a summer internship with leading fitness apparel brand Reebok in Canton, MA, the Industrial Design grad student and longtime “sneaker head” got to fulfill a childhood wish – and explore a future in the field.

“Being able to come full circle and intern in an industry I daydreamed about when I was a little kid was really cool,” said Chaganty, who specialized in material investigation while working with Reebok’s Running Footwear Development team. Over the course of the 10-week internship, she participated in materials selection, field performance testing and other vital aspects of the research-and-development process for the company’s Spring/Summer 2017 line. She also enjoyed the fringe benefit of being the “lucky sample size” for testing prototypes.

What sets the sneakers Chaganty worked on apart from their predecessors or competitors? “I really can’t tell you!” she insists, but says that the end result proves Reebok’s willingness to “take bold risks with design” while also keeping an eye on green manufacturing practices. “We’ve gone from a world that didn’t think much about sustainability to one that wants to be hyper-sustainable,” says the designer, who was pleased to see a serious dedication to sustainability taking root throughout the organization.

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Emily Frances Winter MFA 15 TX describes her research-driven thesis as “an argument for the potency of textiles as a medium.”

When Jane Androski MFA 11 GD and Emily Rye MFA 11 GD were collaborating on their joint master’s thesis five years ago, they often referred to it as “the work before the work” – a way to establish and visualize the terms and goals of a professional partnership post-graduation. Now co-principals of Design Agency, a Rhode Island-based studio they founded to embrace design as an agent of change, their experience stands as a prime example of the theme at the center of Formative & Persisting, the most recent iteration of a biannual exhibition that highlights the research, dimensions and dynamics of the written thesis at RISD. The exhibition, on view through September 25 at Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery, presents the thesis as a living document-one that frames and propels work done at RISD as much as it sustains future practice.

Supported by Graduate Studies and curated by Senior Lecturer Anne West, Director of Campus Exhibitions Mark Moscone and current grad student Elizabeth Leeper MFA 17 GD, the show includes written theses by 30 graduates (including Androski and Rye) along with visual representations and descriptions of their creative practice. The curatorial team has divided the work into six categories – blueprint, catalyst, method, monograph, pedagogy and research – that suggest the various ways the thesis is, as the title suggests, both formative and persistent. With outcomes that range from a graphic novel questioning approaches in arts education to a speculative magazine focused on the future of wearable technologies, the work showcases the diversity and depth of voice found within the graduate community at RISD.

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This summer Julia Steketee (left) used her French and some Wolof to speak with Senegalese women about health issues in Dakar.

Over the summer, Furniture Design major Julia Steketee 18 FD explored the world of 2D half a world away, flexing her photography and graphic design muscles as an intern at Speak Up Africa in Dakar, Senegal. The organization focuses on advocacy and communication with an emphasis on health-related projects like Zero Malaria Starts with Me.

“A big part of the experience was being a woman on my own in West Africa,” says the native of Atlanta, GA, who learned some Wolof – the local language – while also speaking with locals in French. “People were really friendly and open and wanted to show me how wonderful their country is.”

Steketee’s father works in public health, so when she began looking for summer internships he helped connect her with Speak Up Africa. Through RISD Careers, she learned that she could apply for a Textron Award, which helped to finance the experience. “I wanted to use my design skills in an NGO environment,” Steketee explains, “to help people through design. And I like the fact that Speak Up Africa is run by Senegalese people, giving Africans a voice.”

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As a summer intern at NYC’s American Museum of Natural History, senior Joyce Lin focused on fabricating models of Cuba’s swamps and coral reefs | photo courtesy AMNH/R. Mickens

As visitors to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in NYC beat the city heat and explored four floors of exhibits illuminating everything from dinosaurs to outer space, a team of curators, artists and research associates was busily at work up on the fifth floor. The space was closed off as the team painstakingly worked on ¡Cuba!, an exhibit that will open in November and explore in depth the island’s biodiversity, culture and history. Among the skilled fabricators and model makers working to ensure that the exhibit meets the AMNH’s high standards was rising senior Joyce Lin BRDD 17 FD, who landed a summer internship at the museum funded through a Textron Charitable Trust Fellowship.

“There are a lot of Cuban animals I was completely unfamiliar with,” says Lin – unique species “like the solenodon, a small but venomous rodent that’s found nowhere else on the planet.” In fact, 32% of Cuba’s vertebrates and 50% of its plants are endemic to the island. Other species the exhibit will highlight include the endangered Cuban crocodile and the long extinct giant sloth.

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