The RISD 2013 MFA Show is a component of the graduate thesis. Held annually, every department represents themselves within the context of the entire RISD Graduate Department.

With our exhibition we aimed to demonstrate graphic design’s hybrid character, functionally linked to commerce while producing expressions of cultural and aesthetic value. By displaying the work in multiple ways – in a hypothetical fine arts gallery setting documented in a printed catalog, and as a store within the MFA Show’s exhibition space – we expressed the duality of graphic design practice. These two ways of seeing the same work explore the complicated status of contemporary design at the intersection of “fine art” and “commercial art” by simultaneously framing graphic design in the everyday and the curated encounter.