Department of Writing and Communication hosts Opening Reception for ‘Critical Making: A CRDM Exhibit’

On Tuesday, July 2^nd, the Department of Writing and Communication (DWC), within NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), held the inaugural gallery opening for “Critical Making: A CRDM Exhibit” in PVA Gallery 217. The event brought together graduate students in the M.A. in Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (CRDM) program, other interested students, alumni, and faculty from across CAHSS for an evening of celebration and critical making.

The exhibit included a wide range of CRDM students’ physical projects (board games, print pamphlets, printed posters, fabric bags, etc.) intermingled with several interactive digital projects (websites, audio recordings, etc.) presented on tablets and computers throughout the gallery. Every project in the exhibit had a placard along with a quick response (QR) code. The code linked attendees to a digital version of the gallery that curated and contextualized the projects by the classes for which they were created.

In addition to learning about the different multimodal and digital projects graduate students create in CRDM courses, attendees were introduced to the concept of critical making and the DWC’s Production and Preservation Project (P3)—a new initiative the department is undertaking to digitally archive and showcase student works. Attendees were also invited to practice critical making during the event by collaboratively contributing pages to a zine memorializing the exhibit’s opening.

“Our CRDM students produce amazing works throughout their M.A. that challenge traditional notions of humanities scholarship,” said Melissa Bianchi, Ph.D., assistant professor of writing in the Department of Writing and Communication.  Several M.A. in CRDM students attended the event and had their works highlighted, including Nikki Chasteen and Veronica Diaz, who began the program in 2018 and 2017, respectively.

Mario D’Agostino, visiting assistant professor of writing, Bianchi, and Kaitlin Armstrong, a current CRDM student, curated the exhibit. “After seeing the work being produced in individual CRDM classes, we felt that it was important that the wider NSU community experience these incredible projects,” said D’Agostino.  The exhibit will run through August 12, 2019 in the PVA Gallery 217 in the Don Taft University Center.