Material Resistance: Tools, parts, and assemblies that explore form, performance, and culture

Harvard Graduate School of Design + Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard

June 2 - July 3, 2025

In collaboration with the Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) presents an exhibition of student work from the interdisciplinary course – GSD 6317 - Digital Material Systems. The course originated as part of a long-term GSD research program supported through collaboration with the Spanish Ceramics Industry Association (ASCER). Since 2010, the collaboration between the GSD and Ceramics Program has matured and evolved into a thriving experiential learning opportunity for design students across disciplines and origins to converge, get their hands dirty, and be humbled through deep exploration of material and process. With a computational design, digital fabrication (including robotic fabrication) underpinning, students explore opportunities and challenges at the intersection of the perceived uncertainty of clay and the lore of certainty in the digital. 

The exhibition includes a collection of tools, parts, and assemblies produced by students during investigation of form, performance, and culture—all while finding a balance between the resistance of tool (physical and digital), material, and assumptions. The work can be evaluated through many lenses—sculptural and performative artifacts, stories of process, tools as objects, representations of diverse ideas from a global student body with a range of experience—all in service to learning objectives that are independent of the creation of beauty which emerges through the resistance of material. 

Gallery 224 is open to visitors Monday through Friday, 10am-4pm. Visitors should ring the doorbell for entry and plan to limit your visit to the Gallery; the Ceramics Program is not able to give tours of our facility at this time.