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  12th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2026 Poster

  Special Collections and Fleet Library

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  Translucent Dreams

  Jeanne Alailima, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This piece explores the feeling of trying to remember our dreams; fragmented, distorted, and foggy recollections.

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  Recall

  Sadie Almand, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Recall is a organza fabric book object meant to invoke and represent the fleeting and tactile qualities memories hold. Each panel has printed photographs of a summer trip that are cropped and edited to represent sensory fragments of memory, with overlaid thin white embroidery of room contours. The embroidery is meant to embody a physical effigy of the memories rooms hold, and the meditative process of recreating memory. The pages are meant to be layered in varying orientations and variations.

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  Helen Marie Besch… Sure is a Student at RISD

  Helen Besch, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  My project was to create a artist book in the form of a zine depicting my first semester at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). I was inspired by online fandoms, Tumblr posts, and fanzines. I combined illustrations, screenshots of direct messages and online posts, comics, photographs, and text made by me in order to create this piece.

  The book mimics looking through a Tumblr dash (where you look at new posts). Images will go from deeply personal comics, to funny jokes, to uncomfortable topics, to intimate direct message screenshots, to fun information. The intention is for the viewer to be uncomfortable and confused, knowing that everything has significance to the creator while also not having enough context to get the full extent of the meaning. Just like I feel when scrolling Tumblr. The pages being cut from color laser prints adds to the digital social media aesthetic, as the images before being printed were digital, and the prints are smooth like a digital screen. The flipping of the pages also contributes to a scrolling sensation, as there is a physical aspect in both flipping pages and scrolling to reveal new information. The inclusion of personally made Tumblr-posts between chapters helps to reinforce the social media theme.

  But, I also call this a fanzine. This is because it includes many elements referenced in fanzines, such as comics, Tumblr references, character sheets and photo collages of characters. Overall, I wanted to see my life through a random assortment of snapshots in the form that mimics social media posts and takes inspiration from fanzines. This reflects my life right now, as all that I feel that I really do anymore is RISD related things and fandom related things.

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  For Emily Whenever I May Find Her

  Dinah Biga, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This pop-up book is my interpretation of the song For Emily Whenever I May Find Her by Simon and Garfunkel, which follows a character searching through a dream to find their lover.

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  One unending thing

  Keira Callahan, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  There is something unimaginable about utopia that is not dissimilar to our understanding of infinity. Both are in some way beyond language, beyond thought. This book considers the infinity symbol as a word-like form, making reference to the act of writing, of putting ink to paper, to suggest connections between language’s inadequacy and the twin pursuits of the infinite and the utopic.

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  Impressions

  McKenzie Chase, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  A commemoration of the tree I’ve observed through the art of eco printing, creating a visual and tactile representation of its presence and ecosystem. By using natural materials sourced directly from the tree and its surroundings—leaves, bark, vines—the book serves as a physical archive of the tree’s unique characteristics and the interconnected life it supports.

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  Climate Change is a Threat Multiplier of Gender Inequality

  Mia Kei Cheng, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  I handmade this book in response to the prompt "defending against violence" when learning about how violent climate change can be, especially when intertwined with other social issues such as gender inequality. I feel like the connection between climate change and gender inequality isn't talked about nearly enough, because "although climate change affects the whole world, its impact is not equal." By using this intensive method of hand stitching, sewing, beading, and felting, I wanted to mirror the attention I feel we should be giving to such issues.

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  To the Part of You That Still Hopes

  Xing Chen, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This Artist book is a chocolate box dedicated to the part of us that still hopes. It opens up to reveal a tissue paper with all of my childhood beliefs, past, present, and future. Some illusions are childish ones we gave up on when we grew older, such as "Santa will bring me gifts in Christmas if I behave" and some are bittersweet ones we are still holding onto such as "I will inspire millions of people with my stories". When you lift the tissue paper, you will find 8 clay chocolates that each reveal my 8 dearest illusions. In a world that constantly dismisses our dreams as immature and unrealistic, this project implores people to hold onto these illusions close to our heart, for the tender, beautiful, and everlasting part of us that still dares to dream.

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  Unearthed Material

  Hannah Chosid, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This book traces the history of three material objects created naturally and artificially on Earth in the past 350 million years. For most of history, the Earth’s geological activity has created and destroyed its own natural resources. Now, humans have created about 1 trillion metric tons of mass. Artificially-made objects accounted for about 3% of mass on Earth in 1900, but now physically outweigh all naturally-occurring matter on Earth less than 150 years later.

  By reflecting on the timelines, processes, and materials associated with three objects created hundreds of millions of years apart, we can start to uncover truths about our physical reality, waste, and the natural world.

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  0525

  Evelyn Chow, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  0525 is a three-dimensional timeline in the form of an artist book, depicting the people I’ve met and lost over 20 years of my life. I analyze my relationship with family, mentors, and friends throughout my life and how they correspond to my perception of time. 0525 takes inspiration from phenomenological concepts such as temporality, intersubjectivity, and durée.

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  Counter Dots

  Barbara Cutlak Soares, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  At a certain moment in the history of book and graphic design, around the 1450s, the famous printer Gutenberg started printing with movable type, which are letters shaped in steel instead of handwritten. The letters began to be designed from their negative spaces. The counterpunch is the metal mold that surrounds the original punch and produces the movable type.

  Counter Dots is a book that explores a tactile quality of letters. It began from observing the mobility of a spiral binding, and when in do-si-do binding, two spirals on each side form a kind of hinge. Using the same modules of the spiral hole puncher, I created a grid to base out shapes of a new alphabet

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  Diagrams of the Queer Psyche

  Robin Goldfarb, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This book contains a representation of queer, trans, and BIPOC voices through the use of collage and poetry. Within 90 pages, viewers will discover humor in finding a voice, the strength in community, and the sadness in loss, all bundled into one collective work.

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  Chokor

  Tauseeq Gulzar, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Chokor is an accordion-fold work laid on the floor, moving from vivid Kashmiri architectural memory into forms that loosen and drift beyond the body’s inherited sense of order. Through processes that allow marks to slip, warp, and burn, the piece treats distortion as a way of queering geometric systems, an approach rooted in queer phenomenology, where misalignment and disorientation become ways of knowing. What remains is a fragile, scorched surface that holds the tension between discipline and dissolution, and the quiet moment when form breaks open into new orientations.

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  The Walk of the Creature

  Manuela Guzman, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This book is a visual interpretation of Chapter 11 of Frankenstein. Inspired by Richard Long’s explorations of nature through walking, it is divided into three sections, allowing the viewer to experience the mix of calm and violence the creature encounters in its first moments in the outside world. The fragmented format not only reflects the creature’s experience as it is pieced together through memory, but also evokes the fragmented nature of the creature’s own body.

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  “Wu Fu Lin Men” (Five Blessings Arrive)

  Emma Hsieh, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  The five gods represent wealth, longevity, happiness, prosperity, and fortune (from front to back). Giving best wishes to the ones.

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  21st cent., Archival, (East) Asian, Authentic-(Chinese)-American, Calligraphic Scroll, 074326827-CHDKJL

  Karen Hu, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  How may Asian Americans struggle through the contradictions that emerge when trying to form a genuine connection to land, having been born and raised in a settler-colonial state system? The Asian American community must ask what relationship one seeks to have on/with Turtle Island and its stewards, in the same breath as we ask what connection we hope to keep with our ancestral homelands, in the same breath as we question the nature of our subjectivity in this settler-colonial nation-state, "United States."

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  The Dream of Cloth Fish

  Rhea Hu, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Stitched between fabric and memory, this work traces the women of my family—mothers and daughters bound by hand-sewn garments and the quiet labor of care. In the folds and seams lies both the tenderness of reconciliation and the shadows of inherited wounds, each thread holding the weight of distance and return.

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  Limerence

  Simone Ichwantoro, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Limerence explores the overwhelming attachment to a person who has become a obsession of the mind by recounting a dream through poetry, illustrations, and fragmented pages

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  Fluff Puff

  Emerald Jiang, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Fluff Puff is a book design inspired by Giles Deacon’s Spring/Summer 2009 collection. I created a tactile color palette using dyed cotton from stuffed animals, designed the book cover, and made mockups as set pieces for the catwalk. Interior pages are black and white to enhance the vibrant, fluffy cover and create strong contrast.

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  Monsters Ink. Chapter 3

  Jessie Jkanji, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  I seek to consider pattern as a way of reading the world around us. Pattern establishes a visual narrative that we can see in nature, philosophy and medicine. It elicits psychophysiological effects, seen through the activation of sensory-motor, emotion and reward centers of the brain. Extending my drawing practice through ink, I have layered sequences searching to evoke the concept of rasa – a state of total absorption and emotional resonance. In joining this understanding of pattern in the form of a book, it presents the viewer who reads the work with an opportunity to experience pattern visually, spatially and temporally navigating from page to page. In this sense, this publication become a story board for the evolution of pattern.

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  I, Object

  Mahrukh Khizar, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This artist book brings together a series of my photographs—self-portraits, still life, and images where the body and object merge, reflecting my experience as a foreign person settling into a new country and an unfamiliar house that I try to call home. The work captures emotional vulnerability in friction with a new environment and the longing for the familiar. Created as cyanotypes, the images are accompanied by text that whispers and echoes around them, amplifying the sentiments of displacement, intimacy, and the shifting relationship between body, space, and belonging.

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  Gossip: An Investigation into the Feminine Art of Conversation

  Deborah Khodanovich, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Gossip is a craft and a kind of labour that women have used to create and sustain social networks for centuries. In spaces like quilting bees and sewing circles, gossip has been a form of resistance where women exchanged knowledge and wove their stories together both literally and metaphorically. There's a deep connection between textiles, computing, and discourse. What I love about gossip is that it operates on different levels-it's a form of cultural labour, walks the line between care and control, but it's also joy. It's celebration, and it's survival. A radical reclamation of leisure and connection.

  This artist’s book explores the relationship between gossip and textiles through an image archive, a pixel font inspired by Gutenberg's first font Textura, and an icon set inspired by Susan Kare's pixel designs for the initial web.

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  "Remove the Jacket"

  Shay Killeen, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Historical and Familial story on the Philippines.

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  Our Mother and Us

  Allison Kim, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  In my accordion book I depict my own story based on Korean traditional symbols, folktales, and folk art/ ink drawings to create a piece reflective of my own family. Korea's national animal is the tiger which represents the nation's strength and power. In many Korean folktales the tiger is portrayed as a foolish or greedy character, but I chose to reclaim this narrative as the tiger's strength is used to protect the powerless children against the four crows (the number of misfortune and death in Korean culture). I created this narrative in dedication to my mother; to portray how she shows her love to my sister and I.

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  Memoire

  Lucie Kusner, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Memoire is a labor of love I made using old clothing and fabric scraps, upholstery swatches, doilies, yarn, beads, and ribbon. I worked in various techniques on each page such as machine and hand sewing, quilting, knitting, beading, drawing with pen and ink, and block printing. The found materials and text work together to express my connection to my home.

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  The World of Color

  Hannah Lee, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Inspired by childhood memories, color can reflect so much memories and emotion. Different colors can mean different reflections/memories for people, so I wanted to create a color swatch full of color palettes incorporated with words that could align with the colors.

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  Dolores (From "Lolita")

  MinMin Liang, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This wooden tunnel book takes the form of a dollhouse. Through the windows, viewers first see a messy room, but when the shutters are opened, the scene transforms into a bloody crime scene. The piece reimagines Lolita with a reversed narrative: in Nabokov’s original, Dolores Haze exists only as “Lolita,” a name and identity imposed by Humbert. Here, Dolores reclaims her story and speaks in her own voice—one where she kills Humbert and reclaims the power that was once taken from her.

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  Falling

  Cindy Li, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Falling is a Jacob’s ladder box holding two halves of a conversation. Edition of two.

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  The Withering Touch

  Jiwon Lim, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This book uses the Venus Flytrap as a metaphor for relationships that become harmful when held too tightly. What begins as care slowly grows into something consuming, revealing the danger of affection without boundaries. The narrative reflects on how maintaining a gentle distance can sometimes protect both sides.

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  Do Fish Dream on Land

  Ellie Lin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This book takes the form of a coelacanth to explore evolution, ancestry, and what it means to be a living fossil. Inside are sewn tiles of extinct and extant species that form an evolutionary web. The soft format encourages play and interaction with shape and color. Through endless rearrangement, evolution becomes something all species aspire towards, a constant experiment with the possibilities of biology.

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  The Menu

  Tonya Lin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Journey through a menu of food created into separate dimensions.

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  Portunus pelagicus

  Jason Louie, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This piece centers the phenomena of the pathetic male in the contemporary scene of incel culture by depicting the hateful dialogue of a breakup, parallel to descriptions of the evolutionary developments a crab. The book closes by asking questions of those who criticize both the crab and incel, asking how much free will they have as creatures and people victimized by their environment.

  Book text: “I’m breaking up with you.” / If he was a decapod he would carcinize “Your life standards are too low for me, we both deserve better.” / His claws grew to let him grasp any scavengeable food “Stop changing the topic, we need to talk about this.” / His legs evolved for scuttle away sideways from predators “You never open up, I wish you could break through your shell” / His body calcified to protect him from the crashing waves * “I’m sorry, it was stupid to think I could change who you are”/But regarding the formation of his truest self, “Because maybe you’ve never been capable of loving me.”/Did the environment even give him a choice?"

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  Hose

  Arlie Lowe, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  A book that unfolds into a quilt, about a childhood memory involving a hose. Explores how memory is a form of storytelling, and the ways in which our minds weave meaning into fiction.

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  Seas Away

  Airien Ludin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Seas Away explores the process of sorting through the belongings of my late grandmother, who lived across an ocean for most of my life. This book explores the strange experience of discovering someone anew through the items left behind, through the spaces they once inhabited. Through its structure, Seas Away mirrors this labor of untangling memories and grief, and the struggle to pack them all up again.

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  ராமாயணம் (Ramayana)

  Pallavi Mallik, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  The Ramayana is a key scripture of Hinduism in which the main hero, Rama, saves his wife, Sita, from a demon king, Ravana, after a long journey and violent war. The interpretations of the Ramayana differ across countries like India and Thailand, including the ending: is Sita engulfed by the Earth, or are Rama and Sita enthroned? The idea of a book as not only a book, but an object of remembrance and obscurity, deviates from the original telling of the Ramayana, bringing light to the stories of Sita and Ravana's perspective.

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  The Violet City

  Longwen Miao, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  The Violet City is a handmade picture book that I both wrote and illustrated, blending Gothic aesthetics with social allegory. Set in the ancient Central European city of Quaik, the story unfolds during the violet season when a mysterious stone pillar transforms residents into animals reflecting their true nature.

  Through charcoal illustrations, this book tells the story of the Steinbach family—an authoritarian father, an independent eldest daughter, and a sensitive younger daughter—as they experience awakening and tragedy through mysterious transformation. When the father becomes a raging bear and the sisters transform into a cat and hamster respectively, they begin to explore family secrets and the city's truth, ultimately discovering that the real curse is not supernatural forces but cycles of oppression passed down through generations.

  Crafted on handmade paper, each page carries profound reflections on power, truth, and self-liberation, presenting readers with a beautiful yet unsettling allegorical world.

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  A Day in the Life

  Ruby Nemeroff, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  An examination of personal ritual and routine. Or, a pseudo-interactive UI of the objects and daily bookends keeping me sane. Or, a multimedia gamification of staying alive in the face of a future both impending and unknown. Or, a silly little singing box!

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  Dreamscape

  Anna Nichamoff, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This book is a playful exploration of dreams, softness, and materiality. I want opening this book to be a joyful experience, and to encourage people to touch and interact. To me, it feels like the softness and safety of drifting off to sleep as a child, blanketed by pillows and warmth.

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  Genealogical Jiapu

  Mitchell Poon, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This flag book (one of a series of six) explores gene expression and the resemblance between family members of different generations. The term jiapu refers to the Chinese document recording a family’s lineage. In this project I have overlaid different combinations of my face, my father’s face, and my paternal grandfather’s face in an attempt to create my own jiapu and to examine similarities and differences between our facial structures. Through these images I seek to explore physical differences between us and reflect on the different or similar experiences each of us have had throughout our lives. This concept has been further explored through the printing process - the books contain the direct intaglio prints from the original copper plates, ghost prints, and letterpress printed surface roll prints, all in an effort to further explore this concept of generational passage and the various expression of genes.

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  Canidae

  Rhea Pradeep, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Canidae highlights the contrasting perception humans have towards dogs and wolves. Though dogs are descendants of wolves, they receive far more care and affection than their ancestors. In children’s stories and other media, wolves are repeatedly cast as the “big, bad” creature, despite their vital role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. How do these narratives subconsciously shape the way we see and treat these animals? Canidae is a collection of four stories that weave together spot illustrations, comics, and research to examine these questions.

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  Utopia

  Mohan Qian, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  I use a government-issued household first-aid kit as my point of departure to construct a seemingly jubilant utopian world. Ironically, the contents of the kit reveal that this “positivity” does not arise from individual free choice, but is a fiction imposed by institutional authorities. Through this premise, I seek to reflect how contemporary society rejects and refuses to accommodate negative emotions.

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  The Arcade Providence

  Jacquelyn Rich, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This book is an exploration of the Arcade Providence located between Westminster and Weybosset St. It is a very historic shopping center where many people wander through on a daily basis. I spent several hours inside drawing and capturing the movement and emotion of the people I witnessed. I then digitally collaged this into a long accordion-like mural referencing the long corridor shape of the Arcade. If one looks close enough they can see ghosts of the past moving among the people of the present. While capturing the people in the space I took notes of what I witnessed that I complied at the beginning and end of the book. On the backside of the paper are gelli plate prints making a sort of abstracted, colorful, marble like texture. This work seeks to examine the emotions the space evokes as soft light drifts through the top skylights illuminating strangers on a daily basis. A place is not just made up of its architectural elements but also by the people living and breathing in the space.

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  Artist / Athlete

  Ryan Scott, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Using film scans from the RISD Archives collection, this book examines the overlapping and often contradictory existence of an art school basketball team. Juxtaposing black and white film from RISD basketball games with modern-day photos of spaces around campus, this book serves as a tool to piece together fragments of our history that are not always well recorded or preserved. The book also includes quotes from the men who played on those RISD basketball teams of the early sixties, known as the "Red Devils".

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  What does a shoe mean to you?

  Lea Gyuwon Seo, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  What Does a Shoe Mean to You? explores the intimate relationship between shoes and our daily lives. Beyond their function as garments, shoes hold our bodies, meet the ground before we do, and quietly shape how we walk through the world. Worn at the very end of getting dressed, they complete who we are, grounding our identity in something both practical and personal.

  From a new perspective, the book invites viewers to consider how shoes can be interpreted differently by each individual. A shoe’s meaning shifts depending on the person who wears it. Routines, memories, culture, and movement through space are often reflected in the kinds of shoes we choose. Through photography, the work slows down our way of looking, revealing details, wear, and character that might otherwise go unnoticed, allowing a new side of the shoe to emerge.

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  Through Memory Lane

  Victoria Sgarbi, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This project describes different aspects of my identity that are built from different locations I have lived in throughout my life. I feel as though throughout my life I have grappled with my identity, being born in Brazil and having a fully Brazilian family, but growing up mostly in the United States. Immigrating to the United States, it can feel daunting to try and fit into one cultural pool, when you're getting pulled by two completely different hands, I never felt I was American enough in the same way I never felt like I was Brazilian enough. With this project, I come to an acceptance that I don't have to have an answer on my identity. Although I was born in Brazil, people and places across the world have become undeniably intertwined into myself. Pushing legibility, I played with colored vellum as an unconventional medium for book pages. I felt this material was perfect: speaking strongly of the layering and complexities of emotional relationships to places I’ve lived in for varying amounts of time. It also pushes legibility in a way that feels poetic, like I couldn't completely unravel the answers to my questions about myself at times. I explored layering of image, text, but also color mixing through paper. When looking at the books in different conditions, they looked completely different, making every experience with each booklet unique. I created packaging that was reminiscent of a filing folder, to take care of my memories and experiences in a cohesive but protective way.

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  The Closest You'll Come to Flying

  Lydia Smithey, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Aerial, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is "an acrobatic maneuver performed in the air." When described to my professor in the project's early stages, he asked me if we were basically, well... flying. This book follows a reportage illustration project following Brown's Aerial Acrobatics Club, including practices, shows, and club history. As a club member, I've found the group to stand out in many ways, earning its reputation amongst other Brown and RISD students.

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  Resisting Facts Kills JR

  Maya Lakshmi Srinivasan, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This artist book Resisting Facts Kills JR satirizes RFK Jr's term as Secretary of Health thus far, especially as it pertains to his anti-vaccine rhetoric. The dos-a-dos format then follows the parallel stories of two families on the opposite side detailing the tragedies that may follow if children continue to forgo vaccination.

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  Taiwan Video Club

  Nicole Sun, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  TAIWAN VIDEO CLUB is a translation of the same film by Lana Lin. I tried to translate the resourcefulness and nostalgia of the film directly into the book with all the means of its form.

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  The Big Book of Little Joys

  Nina Uy, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  A book created as my final project for Andrea Dezso’s Sketchbook Studio. In an attempt to spark meaningful conversations with my peers, I asked friends and family to tell me about something that had made them smile recently. This piece collects their responses and pairs them with illustrations inspired by their stories, and will hopefully serve as a reminder that joy exists in the everyday.

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  Voyager

  Stephanie Van Riet, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  I was inspired to create Voyager after having a conversation about snail migration with a scientist at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia in 2023. At the time, I had been involved in a study at ANS where I assisted scientists in sorting collected snails by species to create a baseline of what lives in the Delaware River. As I classified the snails, I became particularly curious about how nonnative species from Japan ended up in this water way - how is it possible that snails travel vast distances when their bodies are tiny and their movements are unhurried? The scientist informed me that snails can be swept up in ocean currents, transported by maritime vessels, or can even hitch a ride on the back of a migratory bird.

  Voyager recounts the tale of how a small, slow-moving snail might find itself on the other side of the world. This artist book follows the snail's adventure of a lifetime as it soars through the air on its feathered transport, a migratory bird, only to arrive weeks later in a new home. The narrative unfolds in a slow, meandering book form, mirroring the pace of a snail.

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  ?do geese see god?

  Lila Vianna, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  The descent into Hell can be both tortuous but also penance in the eyes of the sinner. From the cover, to the right, and all the way around, the lines top down come from an antagonistic sinner who's faith has been destroyed. From the cover, to the left, the lines bottom up are in the sentiments of a sinner blindly accepting their fate.

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  Under the Feathers

  Shawn Wang, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Under the Feathers begins with a Victorian-style portrait and unfolds, through its hand-drawn and hand-cut tunnel-book structure, a scene where a swan family intertwines with lush botanical forms. The branch-like paper layers create a sense of depth, while the eye elements blend the eerie with the dreamlike and guide viewers into the hidden and gentle world beneath the feathers.

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  Our Future is Bright

  Ellie Wolgemuth, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  It can be difficult to stay positive in a time when there are many fears about jobs, money, housing, politics, and the environment. Students at Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University were invited to share what objects or mindsets make them feel positive, happy, or hopeful for the future. This book features a series of illustrations and anonymous quotes with the intent of highlighting how students in 2025 are working to have a brighter outlook on the world. The accordion format turns a typical page-by-page book into a collection of tips that can either be interpreted individually or together. Furthermore, this work can serve as a time capsule for the struggles our generation is currently facing.

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  Techno in Asia

  Caleb Wu, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  The electronic music scene across Asia is undergoing a tectonic shift. Once a Western import, techno has become deeply rooted in Asian metropolises, shaping unique identities and narratives. This collection mirrors techno's chaotic and immersive energy through its design, using random decorative elements, glitch-inspired visuals, and pixel typefaces to evoke the digital and unpredictable atmosphere of raves. Neon accents and Chinese characters ground the aesthetic in its Asian context, blending cultural heritage with the futuristic pulse of the music.

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  Happy Meal

  Abigail Yang, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  Everyone is searching for ways to be happy every day. That's why I've prepared a Happy Meal with three books about my own happiness — one about the things that made me happy before I turned 18, one about joyful moments with my family, and one about the happiness I'm pursuing now.

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  Whale Falls

  Cora Zeng, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This tunnel book draws inspiration from a whale stranding I witnessed firsthand, and how the deceased whale continues to nourish coral, plankton, and other marine life. Its construction was inspired by artist Judy Chen's approach to art books, incorporating numerous recycled materials—such as paper from Loop Lab and discarded Riso print materials—to embody the concept of recycling.

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  My Apple Journal and Reflection Entries are Being Used to Train an AI That Knows My Emotions Before I Do and That's OK

  Andrew Zhang, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  An exploration using generated photography of the emotional space in technology and a culture of hyper sharing of personal information

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  Where Futures Grow

  Joyce Zhang, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This piece features a small 3D house that holds a handmade book behind its door. When opened, the book can be pulled out and read. The story leads into a garden where a seed of the future grows into a tree bearing clocks as fruit, each symbolizing a different possible path in life.

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  Bound Botany - New England Fall Archival Book

  Serena Yu, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  This book is a culmination of the New England fall season plant ecology, represented through foraged pigment, experimental fibers, natural compounds, and preserved organic material. The local ecology offers seasonal colours, textures, and mediums that are bound into an indexical archive focusing on material quality, experimental process, and natural collaboration.