DESIGNING TRADITIONS
2020 - 2021
Museum of Art, RISD
Providence, RI
Designing Traditions: Student Explorations in the Asian Textile Collection Biennials (2008 - 2018) investigated the boundaries between translation, appreciation and appropriation of global collections and restorative curatorial intentions. In collaboration between the RISD Textile Department + Museum of Art Costume + Textiles Department, objects were selected from the Lucy Truman Aldrich Collection by curators Kate Irvin + Laurie Brewer.
Embedded in studio craft and technique, the textile students were then assigned to select a piece, research, and write a presentation about its context and origins, a printed response to display alongside the object of choice in the biennial exhibitions. This case study intended to better understand the implementation of object-based research within design studio practice.
Objects, artifacts, costumes and textiles remain out of time
and out of geography, divorced from their origins, forever possessing an essence of loss and detached histories. Historically this practice of exoticism has fed multiple fantasies and demonstrate how we must rethink the empiricist epistemology of the visible. Object-based research develops into a practice of activating recognition investigating the powerful fictions of ethnographic and sociological representations. What we learn from these objects, their history, and their stories of labor and migration are limited only by our imaginations.
- Breathing into Absence: Narrative Strategies and Interventions in Material Histories
As a designer
my focus wasn’t necessarily related to age or income, it was about capturing a youthful feeling. My intuition about fashion has always been my key.
I was interested in dressing every woman, not only a select few . . . . wealth didn’t determine access to good designer clothes. Income shouldn't limit a woman from a well-made closet." - LEO NARDUCCI
Design According to Leo Narducci is a book project and exhibition featuring interviews from the fashion world, includingeditorial and private archival materials.
BOOK PROJECT
Design According to Leo Narducci is a book project and exhibition featuring editorial and private archival materials.
Why
Between 1934 and 1955, nearly 900 garments and textiles were gifted forming the Lucy Truman Aldrich collection, the nucleus of RISD Museum of Art's Asian textile collections. This hands-on method of providing access for students to obtain foundations of object-based research sought to challenge their historical knowledge and cultural assumptions, resulting in strengthening their ability to translate research into ethically informed studio practice. A lack of awareness for cross-cultural complexities can permit one to cultivate the mystery towards an object or textile.
Who
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How
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