UNSEEN CITY
2025 SENIOR THESIS
This is an interpretive archive that captures the unique and often overlooked details present within our everyday environment.
Through observation and a series of exploratory walks across New York City and London, I have assembled a body of imagery that both documents and recontextualizes the things that I have found. In doing so, I aim to encourage viewers to reflect on the familiar spaces they move through daily, and to uncover the hidden layers that shape their environment.
Environmental Font
Raw Image Archive
Research
In the fall of 2023, I studied abroad in London, England at Central Saint Martins (CSM). While I was there, I took a class called Experience & Environment, which focused on creating work inspired by and made for one's environment. On the first day of class, my professor introduced the class to the concept of the dérive, a term coined by the Situationist International, who were a group of radical thinkers from the 1970s. A dérive is essentially an unplanned journey through an environment, intended to help one experience it in a new and unfamiliar way.
Although this was a short exercise meant as an introduction to the course, I was immediately drawn to the idea of getting lost in a familiar space and exploring what kind of art could emerge from that experience. I continued using dérive as a method to explore London, wandering, collecting, and documenting things I encountered on my journeys. Over time, I became intrigued by the city’s vibrant graffiti culture, which eventually inspired me to create a short story about a graffiti alien searching for a friend.
The practice of dérive gradually became part of my everyday practice It reshaped how I interacted with the city and made me more attentive to my surroundings.
When I returned to New York City, I continued the practice. Even though I know the city well, “dériving” helped me notice things I had previously overlooked. Creating art from my environment became something I truly enjoyed, and I realized it was a process I wanted to further explore and develop which led to the concept of my 2025 Senior Thesis.
For my thesis, I continued to use the dérive as my primary method of exploration. Over time, this process led me to develop a vast image archive, which eventually evolved into an interpretive archive, one that combined direct documentation of my surroundings with new imagery inspired by them. Through this practice, I was able to refine my personal style and gain clarity on the type of work I want to continue creating in the future.
My thesis book is divided into five chapters, each exploring a different aspects of urban environment. The themes are graffiti, repetition, form, writing, and world.
Chapter 1: Graffiti
Chapter 2: Repetition
Chapter 3: Form
Chapter 4: Writing
Chapter 5: World
Book System
World
The final chapter, titled World, is a collage that brings together elements from all the previous chapters. It combines everything from the visual world I constructed over the course of the book.