GAUD Exhibition

Spring Semester 2010

Professor: Mike Szivos (SOFTLab)

Design and curation of Pratt’s annual GAUD Student Work show located in the Robert Siegel Gallery.

In my last semester of graduate school at Pratt I had the privilege to take a course which put myself and 10 of my colleagues in charge of the curation and fabrication of the 3rd annual exhibition of student work. The show was meant to be a snapshot of Pratt’s GAUD program and featured 132 projects of student work that varied in size, program, and development. To capture the range of design skills within the school we arranged the work on a ‘net’ structure.

A grasshopper definition was created to generate the corresponding cardboard podiums. Allowing for complete flexibility in the podiums size, form, curvature, and panelization.  The definition also output all of the files necessary to fabricate the podiums appropriately labeling them as well. The individual panels were joined using a tab structure unique to each panel. The top and bottom layers of each podium were automatically called out by the definition and given extra tabs and notches to complete a rigid ring which helped with the shape’s stability. 

The structure consisted of lasercut mylar panels which displayed a range of transparency through  alteration in the form allowing the bottom panels to display the darkest images of the work with the light linework drawings above. The individual parametric panels were snapped together using a box joint.  

The installation took place over spring break 2010 and opened in conjunction with Pratt’s lecture series as well as its perspective students seminar. The show quickly gained success and was featured in numerous blogs including boiteaoutils.blogspot.com and softlabnyc.com To visit please go to my website gtylero.com for additional links and info. *Photographs by Jorge Mendez and Jessika Creedon 

The curation process was quite rewarding for me as it was the largest team design project I have been involved with in school. My final semester of graduate school, exhibiting the very work of myself and classmates, and collaborating with 10 of my peers toward a common goal that we set very high for ourselves. The experience taught me leadership and management skills that will only continue to grow in the future. The tight budget of time and money is something seldom dealt with inside of academia and together we feel that what we achieved, never sacrificed, our ambition for elegance.