Experimental and Foundation Studies

a student, facing the camera, draws on a large piece of newsprint next to a skeletal model and another drawing student

Based on the philosophy that all undergraduate students benefit from a shared understanding of RISD’s approach to studio learning, during your first year you and your peers follow the same studio curricula—known together as Experimental and Foundation Studies (EFS).

Each of the three programs meets one full day per week, with challenging assignments outside of class time supporting the experience. Group critiques help you learn to present your own work and support that of your peers.

EFS studios

Students work on large-scale still life drawings in the Experimental and Foundation Studies studios
Drawing

At RISD students pursue drawing as both a powerful way to investigate the world and an essential activity intrinsic to art and design practice. The studio becomes a laboratory of varied and challenging activities in which to investigate materiality, imagined situations, idea generation and the translation of the observable world.

Book project by Chencheng Liu 23 EFS
Design

In this studio, students explore how to organize visual and other sensory elements in order to understand perceptual attributes and convey meaningful messages through objects, spaces and experiences.

Spatial Dynamics

This studio-based inquiry into physical, spatial and temporal phenomena considers force—the consequence of energy—and its effect on structure. Students explore physical, spatial and temporal phenomena through a range of analog and digital processes.

In the studio

In EFS you work closely with faculty who emphasize rigorous critical inquiry and independent learning, while offering ongoing guidance and feedback. Assigned projects in each studio encourage exploration, questioning and risk-taking.

Critiques following each project let you discuss your intentions and processes, and reflect on the capacity of the work to embody ideas and emotions.

Grey balloon sculpture in the Woods Gerry garden
Student recording artwork made of slinkies and cups
Student standing on stepladder taking photo with phone

Student work

Large charcoal drawing of people on a raft in choppy waves with a whale
First-year arranging illustrated cards on floor
First-year presenting a large abstract charcoal drawing
Students watching a large projected face in the dark
Landscape made of black paper cutouts on a white background
A machine with gears drawing squiggles on paper
Outdoor space enclose by hanging colorful fabric between trees
Digital 3D architectural model
Student sitting in a large sculptural wheel

RISD First Year in Florence Program

Situated in the art capital of Italy and modeled on our foundation curriculum, this unique, immersive program provides the thinking and making skills that define our first-year education, as well as perspectives that emerge from creative cultural exchange.

Find out more about RISD First Year in Florence

Interdisciplinary concentrations

CTC student adjusts model.
Computation, Technology and Culture (CTC)

CTC integrates instruction in writing programming languages with critical, historical and theoretical frameworks for understanding the technologies that shape society and culture, giving students opportunities to incorporate digital technologies into art and design practices.

two students drawing during drawing marathon.
Drawing

This concentration offers a way of engaging deeply with the notion of drawing as speculation. Highlighting the discipline’s connection to innovation and discovery, it encourages students to see drawing as both integral to all of art and design, and as a medium for creating resolved works of art.

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