Date of Award
Spring 5-31-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Furniture
First Advisor
Patricia Johnson
Second Advisor
Andrew Raftery
Third Advisor
Joyce Lin, Harry Allen
Abstract
I don’t recontextualize objects—I subvert them.
I’m not interested in paying homage to forms or giving them a
second life. I don’t see a fire hydrant and think, “what if it were
a lamp?” I’m not recycling visual cues to create metaphor. What
excites me is the slippage—when an object escapes its assigned
role and starts to unravel. My work imagines this moment: when
function collapses, and the familiar becomes estranged.
This is my version of “I think, therefore I am”—not through
language, but through distortion. By twisting the physical
world, I interrogate our reliance on order, logic, and legibility.
Absurdism isn’t my theme—it’s how I engage with the world.
Not for laughs, but as a form of existential provocation. I don’t
want viewers to say, “this reminds me of…” I want them to
pause. To be confused. To feel slightly unsettled. That tension
—like the waiting in Godot or the fragmentation of Ulysses—is
where my work breathes. Where logic breaks down, I dig in.
My objects offer no metaphors, no answers. They are material
misuses—subtle (or not-so-subtle) glitches in expectation.
I don’t ask “why”—that’s too didactic.
I ask “what?”
What is this thing now?
What happens if it shouldn’t exist?
I like to start fires. Stir trouble. Ideally, someone gets upset.
I subvert, therefore I am.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Yichu, "The story of stories" (2025). Masters Theses. 1487.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1487
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