VES 2015 Senior Thesis: the distribution of parts

For many Visual and Environmental Studies students, the Senior Thesis is the capstone experience in the department. Students conceive their theses in conjunction with the department and work closely with faculty members as principal advisers. Throughout the yearlong process, students develop and refine their ideas into a thesis work, concluding with its presentation in this annual exhibition.

the distribution of parts is the title students of the 2015 Senior Thesis have crafted for their group exhibition. The title is fitting, particularly at a moment when ideas, images, news, and materials are gathered and experienced from infinite sources, including social media, advertising, online content, consumer culture, and lived reality—all interpreted and redistributed through some of the same communication channels. Hybridity, as the title implies, is an integrated factor of contemporary life.

The Department of Visual and Environmental Studies is home to a range of studio and theoretical studies in the arts at Harvard University. It offers courses in painting, drawing, sculpture, film, video, and animation, as well as photography, film history and theory, studies of the built and natural environment, and contemporary art. The academic experience transpires in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, where thinking and making—physical contact with various materials—intersect to enable students from a variety of disciplinary studies to be aware of their visual environment.