The Manifesto Project - Photos

Micaelan Davis ( MFA ‘09 FURN)

In the envelope: I have never been one for concluding statements; even my physical work resists being neatly summed up. I see each piece as a moment in time, a specimen of work performed and ideas made real, a stop on the continuum of its evolution. I look at each piece and see the next step I would take or the next piece I would design. I am a gray thinker who longs for the black and white. I use knowledge and facts to get me a little closer to the truth, whatever that may be. When the answers don't make sense I am intrigued. I am interested in the connections between things, why we behave like we do.

Currently on view in the RISD Public Engagement Gallery: The Manifesto Project

Artwork by 11 RISD grad students from the Furniture, Textiles and Jewelry + Metalsmithing departments explore their personal creed as they pertain to being makers of things.

Here are some photos from the exhibition which will be up through Friday May 15th:

Sooyeon Kim (MFA ’10 J&M)

installation view
(l-r) Peter Hedstrom (MFA ’10 FURN), Mary Gagne (MFA ‘10 TX), Erin Scully (MFA ’10 J&M)
foreground Martin Goebel (MFA ’10 FURN)

Tuesday, May 12 at RISD | Public Engagement

The Manifesto Project: A one evening exhibition of 11 RISD grad students’ work for the seminar Contemporary Production Practices
Tuesday, May 12 from 6-8pm in the CIT Building, 2nd floor

Instructor: Liz Collins
Students: Micaelan Davis (MFA ‘09 FURN), Debra Folz (MFA ’10 FURN), Mary Gagne (MFA ‘10 TX), Martin Goebel (MFA ’10 FURN), Phillip Grass (MFA ’10 FURN), Peter Hedstrom (MFA ’10 FURN), Minwon Kim (MFA ’10 J&M), Sooyeon Kim (MFA ’10 J&M), Antonio Manaigo (MFA ’10 FURN), Matthew Perez (MFA ’10 GLASS), Erin Scully (MFA ’10 J&M)


Come see this diverse representation of ideas concerning the creative process of 11 brilliant artists and designers from RISD’s graduate program. In addition to showing the fruits of this exciting project, they class will be celebrating the end of the course and would love to have a drink with you!

Project description:
We seek to define ourselves within the world of art, design and production. This exhibition is a means of establishing that footing. The manifestos that will be presented will explore our personal creed as they pertain to being makers of things.

Course Description for Contemporary Production Practices:
In this course, we examine the multitude of models for the manufacturing of goods, from products to projects. What is the relationship between the designer/artist and the factory? What defines a factory and what constitutes an "industrial process?" How do things get made? Who makes them? These are some of the questions that guide us through the complex world of small to high volume production of consumer goods and the global marketplace. We also look at artists who manufacture and examples of creative projects where making multiples through outsourcing of labor is the means by which large pieces, collections, editions, and bodies of work are realized. Each week we focus on a particular aspect of manufacturing and production, with lectures by the instructor and guests, discussions, student research presentations, and field trips. Topics such as the designer/technician relationship, global trade, the supply chain, and the artist as laborer are touchstones for our in-depth conversations and study of this multifaceted concept. Alongside of weekly readings, written work and research, students are asked to develop a component of their studio work that addresses the idea of a manufactured object.

The Nature of Teaching Exhibitions

The Tricks of the Eye exhibition evolved out of a number of conversations between our office and other departments & offices on campus on how best to foster discussions around publicly engaged art practices at RISD. Given the intense project-driven nature of studio practice and students' busy schedules, I proposed that we create an exhibit that would connect classroom learning to examples of contemporary creative practice. By working with faculty whose courses explore similar themes, students would be offered the opportunity to engage in the work on many different levels, from the intellectual to the conceptual to the aesthetic.

ceramic bowls and poster prototype for Blue Hammer, Leon Johnson

Coming from a background in dialogue-based and performative public art, I was curious about how documentation of these kinds of practices would go over with RISD students. When introducing under-explored forms of art making, there needs to be some level of education around the practices - we chose to take a multi-faceted approach using descriptive wall text, visiting artists talks and classroom visits, and guided-tours with me as curator. Given that we were highlighting documentation of past projects, rather than original work, I was concerned with how to balance the need to contextualize the documentation without having the show become overly dependent on text. I tried to address this issue by including a number of different mediums - from textile to ceramic objects to vibrant poster art, and video to audio.

Meyers-Bitter Survey and Knitting Nation installation views

Does this kind of presentation of multi-faceted art practices work as an exhibition strategy? Even though we recognized the importance of combining object-based work that taps into our desire for craft and concreteness with more conceptual and relational practices. It was also important to, as much as possible, to create opportunities for the students to meet with the artists (or me as the curator) so their critiques and questions could be addressed in real, face-to-face, time.

These conversations - with Peter Hocking and Charlie Cannon's Use of Space:Place of Campus and From Studio to Situation seminars, Marie Cieri's Social Geographies class and Christopher Ho's Competition, Collaboration and Collective seminar - proved to be rich moments of contextualized learning. Sitting in on these classes and walking classes through the exhibit, I have found myself being asked to defend a number of the projects. It was important for me to articulate that I chose to include much of the work due to its compelling problematic nature. Rather than offering answers, the projects included in the show grapple with the complexities of representation and dissemination of socially charged information. The curator's role is one of navigating and interpreting for audiences that may be unfamiliar with the ways in which the highlighted projects fit within the artists' investigative trajectories or larger social practices.

To that end, I will be hosting weekly curator tours of the exhibit on Thursday afternoons from 12:00 - 12:30 starting March 19th and continuing through April 2nd. Please feel free to RSVP to me at ssakash@risd.edu. I also welcome comments to this post or via email.