First xdMFA Thesis Exhibition

Between April 18 and 22, the first two graduates in the xdMFA program shared their research and design outcomes in their Thesis Exhibition. Kansu Özden showed his work for the project Recreating Memories for Immigrated or Displaced People, and Paulina Zeng shared her work on Maintain Social Connectedness: Hanging Out Using Facebook Messenger. For each project, graduates presented working prototypes that attendees could interact with and share feedback.

Each project showed research processes, context for the projects, and outcomes that had come from the prototypes they had designed. Paulina Zeng developed a way to integrate Facebook Messenger with physical space to strengthen in-person and remote interactions via the service. Kansu Özden developed and tested a prototype virtual reality booth that recreated immigrated persons religious customs in order to learn if it could help people feel more connected to their homelands.