After a semester of studying in the historic district of Florence, Italy, a cohort of first-years at the Rhode Island School of Design stepped foot in Providence for the first time. The students are part of RISD’s new First Year in Florence program, which will be sending another group of 20 first-years to Florence in the spring.
The curriculum for the new program is modeled after RISD’s Experimental and Foundation Studies program, which consists of three first-year studios and two liberal arts courses. In Providence, all RISD first-years are automatically enrolled in three foundational courses — drawing, design and spatial dynamics — that they take concurrently. But in Florence, the courses are split into four-week modules, and each course is taken in succession.
The program is taught by three professors who travel to Florence for each of the four-week modules. David Scanavino, a RISD associate professor who teaches design for the program, used exhibitions and museums in Florence to guide his instruction.
“The syllabus morphed as the term went on,” he said. The cohort went to an exhibition at the Strozzi Palace, which he said was almost 20 years in making. The cohort returned to the exhibit many times and “that steered the lectures that were given.”
Inspired by Florence’s craft culture, RISD Assistant Professor Rachel Rosenkrantz focused the spatial dynamics module on musical instruments.
Kal Kini-Davis, a first-year at RISD, created a shruti box — a traditional Indian instrument — which he inlaid with mother of pearl. He said that being immersed in art history while learning the foundations of art was “definitely a unique experience.”
The professors and students were joined by RISD alum Matteo Mastrangelo who served as a teaching assistant.
Mastrangelo, who is from Florence, also helped students adjust to studying abroad, which he said lacks the typical “built-in structure” of a university environment. He said that over the course of the program, he and his colleagues saw the students “grow into adults.”
Students are given the option to indicate if they are interested in the program when applying to RISD. When Arabella Hay, a first-year at RISD, found out that she would be spending her first semester in Florence, she remembers “jumping up and down, just being super excited,” she said.
Kini-Davis said the group became “very tight,” and that he even took a trip to Lucca, Italy, with a few of the friends he made.
After arriving in Providence, Chelsea Zhang, a first-year at RISD who was in the program, said the cohort still remains close. “We’re all kind of sticking together for now,” she said.
“People are generally pretty friendly, but also I feel like for a lot of us it’s hard to branch out,” Zhang said.
Sabela Chelba, a first-year student at RISD, is one of the 20 students going to Florence in the spring. While in Providence, she connected with other students in her cohort. “I've just been eased into it, and it feels a lot less intimidating than it did,” she said. “I think it’s good to sort of work my way up to the international move.”
“I like the people,” she said. “We’ve had the chance to get to know each other and, I don't know how they managed to do this, but they chose a group of people that all just kind of get along really well.”
Izabella Piatkowski is a senior staff writer covering the Rhode Island School of Design.
