CCA News
CCA Presents the Graduate Program in Design 2010 Thesis Events
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010, by Sarah Owens
The Graduate Program in Design at California College of the Arts will hold its year-end thesis events May 4–6, 2010, on its San Francisco campus, located at 1111 Eighth Street (at 16th and Wisconsin).
A reception party to celebrate the program’s newest graduates is planned for May 5 at 5:30 p.m., which will feature food, drink, and a guest DJ. (Visit the graduate thesis events website for a schedule of each day’s events. All events are free and open to the public.)
Each of the college’s Design graduates finishes his or her MFA with a final project that involves extensive research, design, and making, culminating in a written thesis, a salon-style exhibition, and a gallery talk or a formal presentation. Each student also contributes to a programwide group exhibition.
This year CCA's students have been conceiving new ways for designers to work, critiquing material culture, and extruding present-day trends into future objects, systems, and messages. Their work crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries and draws from a diverse range of topics, including entomophagy (insects as a sustainable protein source), rethinking exchange and social spaces, and “reading” songs as visual stories from a collective mind.
Some students have chosen to take on real-world challenges such as the nonrecyclability of a task chair, sedentary lifestyles, and poor dental health in rural Alaska, while others have taken on formal investigations through typography and the printed page.
In addition to the thesis events, visitors can view thesis books and video pieces in the special reading and screening rooms in the Graduate Design offices during the thesis exhibition open hours: May 4–9, from noon–9 p.m. daily).
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is noted for the interdisciplinary and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 20 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in San Francisco and Oakland, CCA currently enrolls 1,740 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl. For more information about CCA, visit www.cca.edu.