Surprising Ourselves | RISD Interim President

A message from Rosanne Somerson 76 ID, Interim Presidenthttps://digitalcommons.risd.edu/risdxyz_fallwinter20142015/1004/thumbnail.jp

President Somerson Announces Action Plan for Social Equity

President Rosanne Somerson\u27s announcement of an Action Plan for Social Equity at RISD.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/archives_activism_racialjustice/1009/thumbnail.jp

Chair and Table

Richard Artschwager was a scientist and a furniture maker before becoming an artist. Through a witty transformation of material and scale characteristic of Pop Art, his work considers the relationship between art and everyday objects as it explores ideas about both sculpture and furniture. The exaggerated thickness of the chair and table negates their traditional function: the narrow space between the seat and tabletop make it impossible to sit there. Artschwager’s use of Formica® with a simulated wood-grain pattern raises questions about what is real, fake, or a simulation of something else. In the case of his Exclamation Point, Artschwager turns a normally small flat punctuation mark written or printed on a page into an oversized three-dimensional object suspended in space. 20th Centuryhttps://digitalcommons.risd.edu/risdmuseum_channel/1026/thumbnail.jp

Elastic Armchair

Based on the ancient Greek klismos form, this chair incorporates bentwood lamination, a technique using steam to shape wood into graceful curves. Patented in 1808, Gragg’s design and construction process benefitted from his experience using this technique to make Windsor chairs, an example of which is on the right. Inspired by the proportions and lightweight construction of the Windsor chair, Gragg fused the classical past with the industrialized future. The chair is adorned with motifs that date to antiquity, such as the painted peacock feathers along the chair back, the acanthus leaves on the seat rail, and the carved hoof feet. Alicia Valencia, RISD (furniture design) / Brown BA student, 2015: The Elastic chair has an anachronistic energy, with the design and construction appearing far more advanced than the skills and mindset typical of its era. The process by which the chair was made can be read in its form, which makes it a wonderful teaching example. Construction included steaming straight-grained wood, bending the malleable wood in a jig to dry, and merging the pieces together with straight or dovetail joints that vary from each other in size and angle due to the gentle compound curvature of the back. My favorite aspect is the delicate and surprising hoof-like feet. This chair communicates substantial information about its making and offers a great model for designing furniture today. ca. 1808https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/risdmuseum_channel/1027/thumbnail.jp

Center for Social Equity + Inclusion Action Plan

Art and design have far-reaching capacities for generating shared language and connecting people and communities. The creative forms we study at RISD are powerful means for conveying ideas and shaping experiences across habituated boundaries. Today we see those forms resonate more than ever before in the multilingual, culturally heterogeneous, digitally interconnected spaces around the globe. In fact, the democratization of communications media has made it possible for long marginalized voices to join and substantively transform our public discourses. The resulting body of critical knowledge has focused attention on interlocking systems of privilege and disenfranchisement entrenched throughout our social institutions, including those of higher education. In response, numerous institutions have worked to counteract the systemic forces of bias and inequality, but these efforts have produced, more often than not, only limited effects, especially when seen in the context of more rapid cultural changes in society at large. This differential between intent and outcomes has added a new level of urgency to the conversation on issues of diversity, identity, inclusion, access, agency, and equity in the halls of American higher education. The following Center for Social Equity and Inclusion (SEI) Action Plan provides the RISD community with an historic opportunity to carefully and systematically address those issues, and realize a forward-looking example for other institutions to follow.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/president_sei_actionplan/1000/thumbnail.jp

2020 MLK Keynote Address: Michelle Alexander Presentation

2020 MLK Series Keynote Michelle Alexander brings audiences profoundly necessary and meaningful insights on the practice of mass incarceration that plagues the US justice system, as well as eye-opening conversation on how we can end racial caste in America. Lecture Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 5:30pm, RISD Auditorium, 17 Canal Walk, Providence, RI. In her acclaimed bestseller The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Alexander peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the US prison system in a work that the New York Review of Books describes as striking in the intelligence of her ideas, her powers of summary and the force of her writing. With equal force and candor on stage, she breaks the silence about racial injustice in the modern legal system to reveal how mass incarceration has come to replace segregation. A legal scholar, social justice advocate, columnist at The New York Times and visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, Alexander explores the myths surrounding our criminal justice system from a racial and ethical standpoint and offers solutions for combating this epidemic. Delivering an emphatic wakeup call from the colorblind slumber that our country has fallen under, she leaves audiences with a new perspective on the challenges facing the civil rights community and a call to action for a multiracial, multi-ethnic human rights movement for justice in America

Commencement 2018 President Rosanne Somerson

RISD President Rosanne Somerson welcomed all at RISD Commencement 2018

Commencement 2015 President Rosanne Somerson

President Rosanne Somerson delivered a welcoming address at RISD Commencement 2015

Inaugural Address | Rosanne Somerson | RISD Inauguration

Inaugural address. The Inauguration of Rosanne Somerson, RISD’s 17th President. October 9, 2015 | Providence, Rhode Islan

Commencement 2016 President Rosanne Somerson

RISD President Rosanne Somerson gives a welcoming address at RISD Commencement 2016