The New School Graduating Class of 2021 Thesis Highlights | Part 3
Despite the immense challenges the past year has posed, the graduating class of 2021 has created work that inspires, teaches, and even challenges us. Leading up to The New School’s commencement ceremony on May 14, 2021, we’ll be highlighting their work and accomplishments so our entire community can continue to learn from and support their research and art practices.
Additional work from the Parsons School of Design Class of 2021 will be featured virtually throughout the summer. More information about this year’s Parsons Festival will be available soon.
Interested in checking out more work from this year’s graduating class? Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.
Congrats, grads!
Lena Chen
BFA Communication Design, 2021
“What would humanity and culture shift from 2021? How do we document the current moment? How would future people remember us? It’s as important for us to talk to our younger generations ahead of time as we talk to each other now. The way we document history, the way our era is recorded should be thoughtfully designed.
Work-from-home allows us to pay more attention to surrounding things: what I’m using in a daily basis and what I’m throwing away. In fact, due to the stunning pace at which scientific technology develops, we rarely notice how fast things are upgrading while other things are becoming obsolete. Ordinary objects are falling into disuse and replaced by new objects everyday. “Antiques of the Present” is a bold exploration in terms of both physical scale and time range. It’s a website archive of objects which we consider to be antiques in the near future. Objects are cleaned, disinfected and sealed in vacuum bags. The initial collection consists of 18 objects, but it’s open for people to add to it over time. It’s a never-ended project.”
Check out more of Lena’s work on her Portfolio website and Project page
Amal Shaheedi
BFA Communication Design, 2021
Baghawat is a print/web archive that challenges false female representation within Pakistan.
“I created this zine to portray resilience, strength, power- everything I associate with the women I grew up around. I was also tired of the media’s portrayal of the “conformist” ideal Pakistani woman, born to fit in the mold of a sister, daughter or mother.
This one’s for all the women out there who have fought and continue fighting to be themselves, despite all the labels thrown their way.”
While the Baghawat zine sheds light into the personal experiences of women in Pakistan, the Baghawat website archive was created to reimagine Pakistan’s male dominant history. It serves as a historical reference, hosting the works of women who struggled to fight the conventions during their time.
Check out more of Amal’s work on Instagram @amalshaheedi and @amalsportfolio
Kevin Loumeau
BFA Communication Design, 2021
“Nobody likes to wait, but somehow we always find ourselves waiting for something. Whether it’s for an appointment, a table at a restaurant, or for your vaccine shot, the time spent sitting around usually increases your anxiety. The Waiting Co. is an app designed to make waiting a little less stressful.
Designed around a simple interface allowing users to book appointments, keep their spot in line, track waiting time, and everything needed to stay on top of your calendar. With a simple swipe on the home page, you enter a personal waiting room that can be completely customized to your liking. Change everything from the seat, the mood color, the lighting, to the objects around you. Feeling fidgety? Your waiting space is interactive, so go ahead and spin the chair around, turn the lights on and off, or even knock the plant over, we’ll clean it up. With all the chaos around you, take time to relax with The Waiting Co.”
Delia Rogers
BA Global Studies, 2021
Birthers, Midwives, and the Doctorization of Childbearing: An Analysis of the Impacts of Settler Colonialism on Midwife Care in the United States.
“Birth in the United States has become overwhelmingly dominated by physicians and doctors. Only 4% of births in the United States are attended by midwives, and of those midwives, an overwhelming majority of them (95%) are white. But how did we get here? How is it that, over the last 150 years, midwives have gone from performing all births to performing less than 5% of them? This paper tracks the historical trajectory of the logics of settler colonialism as they have impacted midwifery in the United States. Through the history of the medicalization of the body as it related to birth and, more broadly, global reproductive justice, it is clear that medicine has acted as a gatekeeper to birth as an autonomous experience (i.e. birthers having access to control over their birthing methods and spaces. Linking this to the epistemic violence that comes along with the production of knowledge for and by the few, the access to midwifery as practice becomes exclusionary to the people who have the means to access it. I draw from authors and literature on critical science and technology studies, ecofeminism, and radical futurity to create a basic framework that looks deeply at how access to midwife care has become widely inaccessible in the United States. In conclusion, midwifery has been materially impacted by the logics of settler colonialism, including the colonial modern gender system (Lugones 2007), the imposition of Western scientific knowledge as true and valid, and the medicalization of the body and birth.”
Leading up to The New School’s Commencement Ceremony on May 14, 2021, we’ll be highlighting graduating student work and projects. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more work from our amazing graduating students! Congrats to all!
Have a thesis or final project you’d like to share? Submit it here.
