Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Illustration
First Advisor
Susan Doyle
Second Advisor
Robert Brinkerhoff
Third Advisor
Zibby Jahns
Abstract
Through interdisciplinary artistic research combining illustration, embroidery, garment construction, and installation, this thesis investigates how patriarchal narratives become internalized within the female body and disconnect women from embodied forms of feminine knowledge and vitality.
Drawing from Michel Foucault’s theories of disciplinary power, Jungian psychology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and feminist writings by Audre Lorde and Karina Blancarte, the project examines how systems of productivity, control, and gendered ideology shape both psychological experience and bodily perception.
The thesis culminates in a large-scale textile installation titled How to Make a Jumpsuit, consisting of embroidered silk panels, commercial jumpsuit pattern pieces, meridian imagery, sculptural elements, and a poem derived from garment construction language. Within the work, the jumpsuit functions simultaneously as garment, metaphor, and ideological structure — representing systems that discipline, regulate, and reshape feminine identity.
By combining dream imagery, embroidery, and material processes associated with care and labor, the project seeks to visualize invisible structures of internalized power and to reopen a space for reconnecting with suppressed forms of femininity.
Recommended Citation
Huang, Xue, "How to Make a Jumpsuit" (2026). Masters Theses. 1598.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1598
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