MFA Thesis Exhibition
The Nature of Belonging: Shaping Immigration through Empathy and Design
The mission of this research is to inspire future designers to utilize specific concepts of empathy as a bridge towards intercultural acceptance for migrants worldwide. Designers have the ability to nurture empathy through visual rhetoric as a way to raise new insights concerning social topics. By proposing distinct visual metaphors for historical topics, a new awareness surrounding these issues may shed light to existing discourses.
Visual Metaphor: Doors of Immigration
Doors represent the opening and closing of laws concerning immigration and the repetitive cycle of enforcing these laws in the United States.
Visual Metaphor: Light and Dark
The typographic shadows on the doors reflect the poem by Emma Lazarus called “The New Colossus.” The fragility of the message is cast on the opaque doors to show the way the message has evolved throughout the years in United States’ history.
