Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Textiles
First Advisor
Anais Missakian
Second Advisor
Amalia Galdona Broche
Third Advisor
Peter Dean
Abstract
This thesis investigates how textiles can unsettle visual assumptions, encouraging a perceptual shift. Through weaving, upholstery, and spatial installation, the work stages a tension between what a surface appears to be and how it is encountered by the body. Through woven pattern, tactile texture, and trompe l’oeil textile surfaces, perception is something negotiated rather than fixed: the eye anticipates one reality while the hand discovers another.
Drawing on a range of sensations gathered from observing landscape formations and textures, it translates enduring scale and material qualities into an interior landscape of woven surfaces and textile-based furniture. Rather than serving as passive coverings, these textiles act as agents of bodily awareness and spatial perception. Softness here is not only comfort but a perceptual strategy that unsettles certainty, slows recognition, and invites a more embodied relation to the material world.
Recommended Citation
Aggarwal, Dahlia, "Foveate" (2026). Masters Theses. 1627.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1627
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Cognitive Neuroscience Commons, Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons, Furniture Design Commons, Neurosciences Commons, Sense Organs Commons