Breslin Bell
Breslin Bell is an interdisciplinary visual artist working primarily in print, sculpture and installation informed by feminisms and feminized rights. Bell is also an educator and museum professional. She has exhibited widely since 2016 in a number of group exhibitions in London, Edinburgh, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and Japan. Highlights include Body Autonomy with Latela Curatorial, Tomorrow 2021 with White Cube London and Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2021. Her work has been featured in Arts Thread’s Global Design Graduate Show 2021 Judges Favorites, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair Panelist Picks, RISD news outlets and other publications.
Her practice considers body autonomy, public health and gender-based aggression and violence—traversing the nonlinear relationship/kinship between transfeminism and reproductive choice, i.e., concerns around estrogen-related pills and surgeries. Her work often explores environmental issues, women’s rights and the intersections between them. She’s interested in the complexities of an “eco-feminism” and “land/body art” lens on feminized making.
Bell is a recipient of the American Cities Internship Program Award with the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop; MASS MoCA Artist-in-Residence; Center for Contemporary Printmaking Artist-in-Residence; and Alice C. Cole ’42 Studio Project Grant. Bell earned her MFA from RISD and her BA from Wellesley College.
Courses
Fall 2024 Courses
THAD H101-19
THAD I: GLOBAL MODERNISMS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This is a required course for all first year and transfer students to introduce them to global modern and contemporary art, architecture and design in the period between 1750 and the present. The course addresses modernism as a global project, presenting several case studies from across the world that unfold to show how multiple kinds of modernism developed in different times and distant places. By presenting alternate, sometimes contradictory stories about modern and contemporary art and design, along with a set of critical terms specific to these times and places, the class aims to foster a rich, complex understanding of the many narratives that works of art and design can tell. With this grounding, students will be well positioned to pursue their interests in specialized courses in subsequent semesters.
Registration process:
First-year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.
Incoming transfer students and sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates should register into section 27.
Major Requirement | BFA
THAD H101-20
THAD I: GLOBAL MODERNISMS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This is a required course for all first year and transfer students to introduce them to global modern and contemporary art, architecture and design in the period between 1750 and the present. The course addresses modernism as a global project, presenting several case studies from across the world that unfold to show how multiple kinds of modernism developed in different times and distant places. By presenting alternate, sometimes contradictory stories about modern and contemporary art and design, along with a set of critical terms specific to these times and places, the class aims to foster a rich, complex understanding of the many narratives that works of art and design can tell. With this grounding, students will be well positioned to pursue their interests in specialized courses in subsequent semesters.
Registration process:
First-year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.
Incoming transfer students and sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates should register into section 27.
Major Requirement | BFA
Spring 2025 Courses
THAD H102-18
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design.
Required for graduation for all undergraduates.
First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.
Transfer students should register into the evening section offered in the Spring semester. Pre-registration into this section is managed by Liberal Arts Division.
Major Requirement | BFA
THAD H102-19
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design.
Required for graduation for all undergraduates.
First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.
Transfer students should register into the evening section offered in the Spring semester. Pre-registration into this section is managed by Liberal Arts Division.
Major Requirement | BFA