Established to showcase the creativity, innovation, and scholarship of Parsons students in a diverse range of disciplines, the Parsons Festival offers an array of exciting thesis exhibitions, presentations, installations, workshops, symposia, gallery openings, and special events. Parsons Festival 2015 continues a tradition of presenting our students’ visual work and the depth of their learning, but it also highlights the collaborative, cross-disciplinary interaction and social engagement that characterize our programs.

This year’s festival is once again part of NYCxDESIGN, a citywide initiative to celebrate New York City’s contributions to and embrace of design. The 2015 festival lineup represents the breadth of Parsons graduate, undergraduate, and pre-college offerings in architecture, art and design history and theory, communication and graphic design, design strategies and management, design and technology, fashion design, fine arts, interior design, integrated and transdisciplinary design, lighting design, photography, product design, and urban design.

Concept:Process at SJDC / Opening Reception Thursday, May 7th, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries & the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery Sheila C. Johnson Design Center / 66 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003

On view Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 12:00 pm to 8:00 pm → more dates through May 22, 2015

The cyclical nature of making, where new ideas grow from the seed bed of those recently realized, is the foundation of Concept:Process. Featuring culminating works by graduating undergraduate and associate’s degree students from across Parsons’ programs, this exhibition marks the middle point of this iterative process, giving both a sample of what has been achieved and a taste of what is to come.

Broadly grouped into thematic clusters, the included students present a variety of takes on notions of identity, sustainability, ethereality, boundary-breaking, and discovery. Unified by their diversity as well as their willingness to reimagine the world they have inherited, these students are actively giving shape to the future. Their suggestions for a greener, more hospitable, more beautiful world can be found in the prototypes, prints, garments, sculptures, videos and more that make up this exhibition.

Individually, each work presented here is the result of semesters of intense concentration, close study, and rigorous analysis. Taken as a whole they present a class of students with a commitment to inquiry, a high level of social engagement and a dedication to making the world a better place. Their work, and the work of their peers in the class of 2015, demonstrate a group willing to tackle large questions and propose new answers, confident that the road from concept to process will lead them to new ways of thinking, seeing, and imagining the world around them.

—Susie J. Silbert, Curator

Off Pink: Parsons Fine Arts 2015 MFA Thesis Exhibition at The Kitchen / Opening Reception: Friday, May 8, 6:00-8:00 PM

The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011, T: 212-255-5793

Parsons the New School for Design is pleased to announce Off Pink, the 2015 Parsons Fine Arts MFA Thesis Show curated by Tina Kukielski.

The exhibition features new works in a wide variety of media and artistic approaches by American Artist, Minhee Bae, Daniel Cerrejón, Aaron Cooper, Jessie English, Amal Khan, Nikola Kravitt, Julie Laenkholm, Logan Lape, Flynn Linehan, M. Mendez, Jeremy Olson, Gabriel Pericàs, Luciana Pinchiero, Sofia Quirno, Patience Rustomji, Leah Schrager, Tariku Shiferaw, Alma Sinai, Buzz Slutzky, Molly Teitelbaum, Keith Tilford, Maika’i Tubbs, Andy Wentz.

Inclusion and exclusion, absence and presence, the canonized and the outsider, these poles assist as benchmarks for locating where and what might be considered “off” in 2015. As a condition that shapes how cultural history is re-activated and re-written across different geographic frameworks and unrelated borders, to be “off” is an essential and agreed upon guideline — an important, self-selecting guideline for a group of artists who meet by seeming chance for graduate study in New York and hail from all over the world. As a round-up of contemporary practices and current trends of the Parsons program, the exhibition is a manifestation and culmination of two years of artistic production. The “off” in Off Pink signifies both a belonging—being member of a group, a cohort, an ensemble—but also a longing to get on with things, to take what is learned and then finally, eventually, and anticipatedly—degree in hand—to take off.

For more information about the thesis exhibition at the Kitchen, please visit offpink2015.com (http://offpink2015.com), or contactinfo@offpink2015.com

Process:Concept at Wanted Design/Industry City / Opening Reception

Saturday, May 9th, 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm

220 36th St, 3rd floor, Sunset Park Brooklyn (Subway: Take the N or R –or D–trains to 36 St. stop in Brooklyn – N is express from Manhattan, much faster (by 10 mins!)

A multidisciplinary showcase of the diverse, innovative work of tomorrow’s leaders in art and design. The opening night celebration will include the following performances. Descriptions here.

On view through May 21, 2015

8:00PM –  Performance collaboration with Mannes the New School for Music – Soo A Kim (BFA Fine Arts)

9:00PM – Dis Course – Marquale Ashley (BFA Photography) & Gabby Madden (BFA Fine Arts) 
10PM – Experimental Electronic Instruments – Brendan Byrne (MFA Design and Technology)

Find out more about the AMT Programs and students showing their work at Industry City here.

With Wanted Design and NYCxDesign