My graduate school journey is broken into 3 semesters. Thesis research, thesis studio, and thesis documentation. The research semester began with any topic of interest we had and how we can look at it through a design lens.
I have an interest for the abnormal and the different. I am a queer woman who has spent most of my life in the closet for fear of being different. So, in my adult years, after learning to accept a piece of my identity, I became obsessed with researching subculture and art. I am fascinated by the outskirts of society and what they do to mainstream society. I often think about the idea of 'normal', why it exists, where it comes from, and the affects of it on individuals and on society. I started this research semester trying to answer the question - what is normal?
This led me down a path of researching 3 buckets - subcultures, rebels (protest artists), and rule breakers (artists who have used their 'difference' in their art). Behind the scenes of this semester, I was coming out to my family and friends grappling with my own personal difference and the affect normal has had on me. Researching artists who used art to discover and express themselves so fearlessly was an honor and it is what I took with my into my studio semester.