EXPIRATION DATE
Every three years, each department at RISD get’s to curate and design a Triennial Exhibition. For the 2024 Graphic Design Triennial, our small team had just three weeks to do just that with work submitted by over 100 students. After my curatorial statement was chosen, I had the opportunity to curate, design, and lead our team through this thrilling display of amazing work.
Expiration Date explores graphic design’s ephemerality by showing the relationship between designed objects in their originally made contexts, and the work being stripped and placed into an art gallery setting.
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CURATORIAL STATEMENT
In an era dominated by visual communication and constant reproduction, Expiration Date considers the harmonious relationship between graphic design and temporality. While reproduction and redistribution is what distinguishes graphic design from other art forms, what was always ephemeral to deterioration is now subject to obsoletion of digital infrastructure and limitations of technological compatibility.
Exacerbated by the digital age and instantaneous access to graphic design material, the work on display confronts the fleeting existence of images and messages. Expiration Date embraces the designer’s capacity to duplicate and disseminate information, questions authorship and intention, and offers opportunities to experience design in new contexts.
We are regularly discarding, referencing, and radically resurrecting visual narratives in response to shifting cultural forces. As nothing remains static and the value placed on visual form is in constant flux, we underscore that expiration is not an end, but rather an opportunity for reinvention.
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