Date of Award
Spring 6-2-2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Graphic Design
First Advisor
Bethany Johns
Second Advisor
Paul Soulellis
Third Advisor
Ryan Waller
Abstract
I see myself as a literary curator — I collect and sequence texts and images, both digital and analog, to reveal, connect, and construct narratives, resulting in shifting meanings and significances. Inhabiting this curatorial ethos, I investigate hidden subtexts, locating personal and collective relations to the margins and files marked “miscellany.” Working in books and installations, I engage with the inherited meanings of visual languages (form, typography, color, material, format) to open up well-worn narratives and craft new interpretations.
Tiny Diasporas is a primer to a design practice that borrows the form of an abecedarius, an alphabetical wordlist for learning the basics of reading and writing. The title comes from a quote by the artist-gatherer Danh Vo, who describes his work as “the tiny diasporas that make up a person’s life.” In this thesis, through projects and interviews, I outline a practice that addresses broad political themes refracted through personal narratives. Where artists like Danh Vo use the museum space as a site for repositioning historical objects to create new meanings, I use the book form as a space for curatorial intervention. A site where interpretation (meaning) is mediated by the space between image and text and through sequence, the book allows me to address my family’s displacement in the context of a militarized state, the traces created by entropy in the everyday and by museum spaces, and historiography as a critical form of creative production.
Recommended Citation
Lorenzo, Angela, "Tiny Diasporas" (2018). Masters Theses. 212.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/212
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