This course is about prototyping as creative technique and as concept. It combines design practice in the studio with theoretical instruction, as an inclusive method of applied critique. Material and conceptual prototypes are developed and tested against the background of positioning critical design practice in the digital age. In today’s design culture the emphasis has shifted from the realized, manufactured object to the digital concept, which is meant to entice investors to support the advent of a novelty that can be integrated into an existing market. New digital design and manufacturing technologies, combined with communication across media platforms, leads an increasingly shortened cycle of producing prototypes as mere applications (often, literally, as apps). Conversely, prototypes in manufacture are established as models from which other forms can be developed; they are templates or moulds that serve as original forms to be copied and serialized. Prototypes are anterior to the type-form of an object; they establish a typology, a genre or family of things. Through a series of studio workshops and seminars the course thus debates the contrasting practical and theoretical aspects of the prototype. From the distinction between various functions of prototypes, via testing methods, to conceptual notions of typology or genre, the course combines the production of prototypes with their cultural meaning.

What are pigments, how are they made, and how do they work? How did the development of pigment technology limit the choices made by artists in specific cultures? How did raw materials cross the globe, and what significance did rare colors carry? What sub-narratives of premodern art have we lost now that pigment manufacturing has migrated from alchemy to science? This course focuses on artist’s pigments through the theoretical, historical, and methodologic lens. Forgotten narratives related to the alchemical, magical, and spiritual qualities of historic pigments will be covered on a global scale. This course also features hands-on, collaborative pigment making from raw sources such as earths, minerals, plants, and insects. Like all Making + Meaning courses, Artist’s Pigments is a hybrid studio and seminar, and class time will be split between discussion, topical lectures, and practical pigment making and usage. Students will be reading texts that address color manufacture and use specific to time and place, the development of pigment technologies, and the effect that those technologies had on aesthetics. This class also includes trip to a paintings conservation lab to discuss how conservators bridge the gap between historic process and modern science. Making+Meaning: MATERIALS approaches materials as creative technique and as concept. It combines practice in (virtual and concrete) studios with theoretical instruction, as an inclusive method of applied reflection. Texts, like objects, are elements that can be freely deconstructed or fused, without following a canon or prescribed context. The student’s creative originality in developing and reflecting on such approaches and processes is tested out in the course. Students are encouraged to integrate the knowledge they acquire from their studio and seminar experiences in this Making + Meaning course.

What is an archive and how can we understand its existence and purpose? What questions can an archive prompt? How can an archive foster further conversations and new interpretations? What new revelations, engagements, and perspectives can someone else bring to a living / existing archive? What elements of an archive can spark further collaborative investigation? This course examines the purpose and significance of fashion archives and ephemera, and give each a new critical and creative life. Students will analyze various types of archives and ephemera, learn how to utilize archival resources, and develop a deeper understanding of how the past shapes contemporary and future fashion discourse. The starting point of their project will utilize their personal experience and specific interests incorporating a multitude of disciplines. They will be asked to interpret an archive through their own discipline, presenting a new narrative; incorporating essays, collages, drawings, photography, poetry, performances, installation, artworks etc. Like all Making + Meaning: MATERIALS classes, Fashion Archives and The Ephemera is a hands-on hybrid studio and seminar class. It will incorporate guest lectures, and outside archival visits to both industry, museology and private collections. There will be supportive readings, printed matter, obsolete technologies and current digital resources to support the students ongoing projects. This course is led by faculty who has extensively worked with archives to inform their own fashion practice, and is currently exploring the future positioning of their own archive. We will approach materials as creative technique and as concept. We will combine practice in (virtual and concrete) studios with theoretical instruction, as an inclusive method of applied reflection. Texts, like objects, are elements that can be freely deconstructed or fused, without following a canon or prescribed context. The student’s creative originality in developing and reflecting on such approaches and processes is tested out in the course. Students are encouraged to integrate the knowledge they acquire from their studio and seminar experiences in this Making + Meaning course.

Part of an effective communication of creative works is their display. The staging of design from ideation, via prototyping, to production asks for visual or plastic presentations that provide context for the work: through narratives about its function and usage, by grouping it with related types or class of products, or via its integration into a larger concept. The contextualization of designed products through displays substantially adds to their meaning. In this course students study the way in which design can be presented meaningfully through exhibition making. Among the aspects to discuss through visual, audio and textual examples are: 1) types of exhibition spaces, from virtual venues to the subversion of retail; 2) techniques of display, from screening mediated objects to their demonstration in physical performances; 3) materials, from site architecture to designing display systems; and 4) curatorial concepts, from themed presentation of collective work to monographic shows. The course is aimed at students who want to experiment with original displays of their work, as part of integrated research, building portfolios, or communicating capstone projects. Exhibiting Design counts towards the core curriculum of Parsons’s BFA Design History and Practice and the Museum and Curatorial Studies Minor; it combines seminar-style instruction with creative work in studios, with curators, designers and retailers scheduled among the guest contributors to the course. Making+Meaning: MATERIALS approaches materials as creative technique and as concept. It combines practice in (virtual and concrete) studios with theoretical instruction, as an inclusive method of applied reflection. Texts, like objects, are elements that can be freely deconstructed or fused, without following a canon or prescribed context. The student’s creative originality in developing and reflecting on such approaches and processes is tested out in the course. Students are encouraged to integrate the knowledge they acquire from their studio and seminar experiences in this Making + Meaning course.