TEDxRISD Amplifies Student, Alumni and Faculty Voices

In early March, 300 art and design enthusiasts came together in person and via livestream for TEDxRISD, the second annual student-organized event bringing together student, faculty and alumni speakers for a night of discussion and connection. The theme of this year’s event was “Echo,” which TEDxRISD Co-president Aanya Arora BArch 2024 says is meant to evoke “vibrations and reverberations” and suggest that the RISD experience is “an iterative process rather than a journey with one destination.”

“We felt there should be a platform where the RISD community can come together and share their voices,” says Arora. “Everyone is doing revolutionary things in their studios behind closed doors, and we want to share that with the RISD community and the wider public.”

Junior Juhi Nagpal 25 FAV, the other co-president, adds, “TEDx is a way of telling the world what we do as artists and designers.”

The TEDx team hosted workshops to prepare the six speakers for their talks. Furniture Design faculty member Amy Devers MFA 12 FD, 2023’s TEDxRISD host and an Emmy Award-winning television personality, and Brown University faculty member Barbara Tannenbaum both helped speakers hone their presentation skills.

Nagpal says, “Many of our speakers come from an academic background, but this is a different type of presentation. The goal is to turn years of experience and expertise into a casual talk.”

For faculty speaker Markus Berger, a professor of Interior Architecture, the student-led nature of TEDxRISD makes it all the more powerful. “For this event, it is really important that faculty participants don’t think they know more or know better than the students leading it,” he says. “TEDxRISD does away with what I call the European-centric hierarchical divisions. Alumni, faculty and students—we are all just speakers. That’s really beautiful.” In his presentation, The Repairer: A Radical Transformation in Design Education, Berger argued that current design thinking adheres to outdated practices reliant on extraction, production and consumption.

Junior Joel Yong 25 ID had begun the evening with a talk titled A Love Letter to Creatives (On Where We Could Belong). Yong, who will be working at the White House in summer 2024 as part of the United States Digital Service, presented his experience as a case study for how work in legislation can be a vehicle for creativity. He drew a distinction between a creation—a physical or material object—and being creative, what he calls “an invaluable asset for organizations that have yet to see how creativity can catalyze meaningful change.”

Grad Student Sylvia Rodriguez 23 IL/MA 24 delivered a powerful talk called The Importance of Believing for Child Abuse Victims, sharing her experience as a survivor of child abuse and how her life changed when teachers believed her story.

Senior Lizzie Brown 24 FAV delivered their talk, The Case for Unethical Materials, wearing animal accessories, including feathers from their own chickens, and elucidated the complexities of protecting animal welfare while also recognizing the harmful environmental effects of synthetic materials. Graphic Design faculty member Douglass Scott presented Why Is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?, which connected his training as an architect to his evolution as a graphic designer and the varied sources of his inspiration, from theater and music to science.

Finally, Photography alum Acacia Johnson 14 PH closed the evening with a talk titled Conservation Through a Lens of Wonder. A photographer and writer from Alaska, she focuses on the environment, conservation and the connections between people and place. Her talk, accompanied by her photographs, made clear how changes in remote places like the Arctic affect life all over the planet and argued for the importance of long-term scientific study, Indigenous knowledge and storytelling in the fight for conservation.

Lauren Rebecca Thacker / photos courtesy TEDxRISD team
March 21, 2024