Special Event

MA Design Research, Writing, and Criticism presents the launch of 2NDFL alongside rapid-fire thesis presentations, sharp dispatches, and critical conversations that explore the shifting contours of design, culture, and society.

Featured presentations from students:

• Dylan Bohm: The Dangerousness of the 12-Inch-Tall Politician: On Documentation, Mediation, and Creative Action
• Jyothi Hiremath: Belonging Beyond Borders: How Design Shapes Immigrant Communities
• Yikang Li: WHAM! in China: Competing Agendas in Cultural Diplomacy
• Christa May: They Have You by the Ovaries: The Commodification of Reproductive Biology
• Ailsa Petrie: Mediated Intimacy: The Origins and Explosion of ASMR
• Ben Rejali: Collect and Destroy: The Politics of Iranian Postage Stamp Design
• Kale Seikkula: Lost in Space: Disorientation in the Digital Age
• Hannah Tatarelli: The Fragmented Sublime—A Journey through Sentient Landscapes

The evening’s program will feature a conversation on writing with writers and SVA faculty members Jennifer Kabat and Jennifer Krasinski, remarks by program chair Molly Heintz (MFA 2011 Design Criticism) and Alex de Looz, and hosting duties performed by SVA faculty members Eric Schwartau and Jon Key (MFA 2021 Design Research, Writing, and Criticism). Reception and launch with food by Tziki to follow!

“2NDFL is a place. It’s the floor of our department, where the D-Crit class of 2025 spent the past nine months developing the thesis projects you’ll find excerpted in this publication.

The second floor has shaped our perspective. (It has also shaped my legs since I usually take the stairs). It’s not quite ground-level and not quite the ivory tower either. It’s elevated but accessible—between boots-on-the-ground reporting and rigorous research. It’s a place for second thoughts, second opinions, and second drafts. It’s where primary and secondary sources come into conversation, taking the form of articles, interviews, presentations, and podcasts. It’s where ideas travel—up from the street and down from the clouds—toward clarity, consequence, and context.

A floor is where meaning begins. Naming it transforms the earth under our feet into something intentional—something measured, defined, and designed. Floor is also a verb—to be moved, surprised, shifted. In that spirit, this publication hopes to do both: to ground you and to floor you. Welcome to the 2NDFL.” —Eric Schwartau, Editor

“The diverse range of thesis topics often surprises the guest critics who join us for students’ ‘work-in-progress’ presentations during the academic year. How can Iranian stamps, fertility treatments, and a 1980s rock concert, for example, be part of the same conversation around our seminar room table? The common thread is the mode of analysis: the lens of design. Starting with the designed artifacts—objects, entities, or systems produced to serve a specific purpose– students consider what a design is made of, who made it, and why. It’s an unassuming start to a research journey that may go on to epic, unexpected places over the course of two semesters and, we hope, beyond. Bigger and broader questions of cultural diplomacy, economic exploitation, or social impact unfold and cross-pollinate. New, and often more urgent, levels of conversation and debate flourish. Ideas gain strength and clarity in the written word, all sustained by the common ground of design.” —Molly Heintz, Program Chair