Outsiders: Designing Engagement
with the Incarcerated
NEW YORK
2016
Role: Designer
School of Visual Arts
MFA in Products of Design Program
My master’s thesis, Outsiders, explores how design can foster compassion for the marginalized and disenfranchised incarcerated population through the creation of social support services and products. Over the course of one year I designed objects, services, digital apps, workshops, exhibits, and conversations aimed at shifting negative public perception of people who are currently and formerly incarcerated. One of the major themes in my thesis work was revealing and elevating personal narratives of those who have experienced imprisonment.
Chronicle
After researching products marketed to correctional facilities, I discovered the literal use of transparency for technology intended to enable correctional officers to find any drugs or paraphernalia smuggled into prisons. Leveraging this design language in an effort to expose abuse in the current criminal justice system, I designed Chronicle—a contraband voice recorder disguised as a digital radio, intended to be sold in prison commissaries.
Conviction
Conviction is a transitional sketchbook that appropriates the graphic language of the alienating mug shot, and instead provides the silhouetted space for people who are currently/formerly incarcerated to fill with their humanity. It is a space to write about their experiences, dreams, hopes, and struggles, and to illustrate these stories as well. As the author and artist moves through the sketchbook the dotted silhouettes gradually fade, giving them full reign of the page, and decoupling their sense of self from the label of incarceration. I designed the conviction sketchbooks because I wanted my thesis to be built upon first person narratives of the experienced. I hoped to one day have these filled out by people who were incarcerated so I could have, and share, a window into their minds.
Conviction: An Interactive Gallery
Conviction was an interactive exhibit dedicated to sharing the firsthand experiences of people that were incarcerated at Rikers Island Correctional Facility. The content for this exhibit was created through the use of the sketchbooks designed by Marianna as a tool of expression and transformation. Through the generous support of Lesley Achitoff, Creative Arts Therapy Program Director at Rikers, Marianna was able to bring these books to her intended audience—the incarcerated population—and then to the public. Gallery visitors had the opportunity to see a largely unseen and unheard perspective, and had the chance to respond to the artists and authors who could not be present.
Outsiders Thesis Book
I wrote and designed a 339 page book detailing all of my thesis work. Below are a few images of various spreads in the book. Edited by Ruoxi Chen and Katya Mezhibovskaya.
Published and printed by Blurb.
