Date of Award

Spring 5-31-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Illustration

First Advisor

Holly Gaboriault

Second Advisor

Leela Croman

Third Advisor

Susan Doyle

Abstract

RISD CRY is a participatory project empowering the RISD community to share their experiences of emotional vulnerability. The project includes physical sign-in forms in campus facilities, a Google Doc sign-in form, illustrations of participants’ comments, and an online campus map where individuals can mark where they have cried. This multi-format engagement fosters community connection, challenges the stigma surrounding emotional expression, and provides a platform for solidarity among individuals facing stress and burnout.

Beyond its tactical goals, RISD CRY also interrogates the cultural frameworks through which emotional struggle is perceived and processed. It critiques the institutional impulse to measure, diagnose, and pathologize grief, burnout, and distress—reframing them not as personal dysfunctions to be managed, but as natural responses to systemic pressures. The project examines how emotional experience is shaped by the language of psychiatry, productivity, and resilience, and invites a reimagining of how we understand and respond to human vulnerability within institutional spaces.

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