In North American higher education, May is a month of culminations — of the academic term and of graduating students’ degree studies. At the GWU Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, it is also the culmination of a degree program, as the Master of Arts in Exhibition Design (MA–EX) graduates its final cohort.
Program graduates from the past decade have weathered unusual challenges — from the global pandemic to fallout from the national embattlement of academia and the arts. And yet, or perhaps in response to these pressures, the young creatives developing through this uncertainty are finding their way to positions of community and cultural influence.
A story from the class of 2022 exemplifies MA–EX graduates. At its heart is Andrew Kastner, an independent artist, and Fourth Floor Design Collective, an emerging design studio co-founded by Natalie Adam and Alex Morpurgo. Three years ago, Kastner, Adam, and Morpurgo were stepping beyond their roles as classmates at the GWU Corcoran; now, by working together and with others in their growing network, they are transforming their graduate school efforts and aspirations into professional accomplishments.
The outgrowth of a practice that Adam and Morpurgo developed while they were students, Fourth Floor Design Collective is currently working on a project that is a realization of Kastner’s graduate research, which reimagined wayside signs as wordless prompts for encouraging deep observation of place. He proposed a redesign of the didactics at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, DC, as a case study in conveying environmental and historical meaning without text.
Not long after he graduated, in October 2022, Kastner suffered a massive stroke, leaving him with severe aphasia — the inability to express himself through speech or writing. Defying the odds and in a serendipitous twist of fate, he is now the 2024–25 Capital Fringe Down to Earth artist in residence at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, which invited him to advance his graduate proposal for Kenilworth’s signage. Through it, he is researching and collecting data about the park for an interactive app that will allow visitors to have augmented reality experiences at nine locations in the park.
While Kastner is the vision, the motivating force, and the glue for the app development, Fourth Floor Design Collective is the voice, providing verbal and visual support. Beyond this core trio, the effort is a show of collaborative force, drawing in an extensive network of contributors. Corey Howell, a GWU alumnus from the interaction design program, is doing 3D modeling and front-end asset design. Kevin Patton, interaction design faculty at the GWU Corcoran, is leading front and back-end development. Andrea Dietz, Kastner’s thesis instructor, and other MA–EX alumni act as critical advisors.
Kastner sees the work of the residency as a first experiment among many in designing for post-linguistic audience engagement. Fourth Floor Design Collective is using the project to strengthen ties to the community that gave them their start and to inform their creative practice. And all involved in — and aware of this group effort — appreciate it as an object lesson in overcoming adversity and starting all over, again.
To learn more about the Corcoran School of Arts & Design, visit corcoran.gwu.edu.