Rhode Island School of Design
Highlights from the Impermanent Collection

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is one of the world’s leading arts and design institutions. Located in Providence, RI, the university is home to numerous undergraduate and graduate disciplines, each with its own recurring local exhibitions of student work. One such example is the graduate biennial showcase. Every two years, each graduate program mounts an exhibition of current and recent student work.

The graduate biennials are a major marketing asset for both RISD graduate programs and individual students. Nevertheless, these exhibitions can only reach local audiences within a 1–2 week timeframe. After that, the exhibition persists exclusively as a website. For the graphic design department’s biennial, No Replica saw potential to transform the physical exhibition into a digital experience through the website, enabling the ephemeral event to live in perpetuity.

The website is a one-to-one recreation of the exhibition’s floor plan, presented as a video game in the style of the exhibition’s visual identity. Visitors to the website discover student work in situ, positioned to match their real-world arrangement alongside other student work. This reinforces the curatorial effort students took in mounting the exhibition and conveys the idea of a cohesive graduate student cohort.

The site simultaneously serves to preserve the physical exhibition by presenting documentary photography from the event. With its unique design, the website continues to live on well past the original exhibition’s time frame and entices new visitors each year.