Be a part of our next cohort!

We are still accepting applications for Fall 2024
(just a few spots left!)

DSI is a graduate social design program that asks:

How can design offer pathways that shift us towards healthy, equitable systems?
What conditions and collaborations enable communities, systems, and nature to thrive?
How can social design increase care and our capacity
for change?

Social design
works with communities, organizations, governments, businesses, and the planet through:

Strengthening Relationships + Care

Advocating for health, equity, anti-discrimination, justice, joy, and healing, Supporting shared values and interdependence, and honoring nature’s wisdom.
Design asks questions over solving problems, with care.

Intentionally
Co-Creating

Collaborating with communities, advocating for mutual benefit and abundance. Centering lived experience, while reducing harm.
Design can shift power, while building leadership and creatively responding.

Embracing Complexities

Breaking from things that no longer serve us. Recognizing the continuum and pluralities, and making the invisible visible.
Design supports new thinking over new things to imagine possibility and lead with vision.

DSI MFA Program

DSI Thesis Show 2024

We are thrilled to extend our warmest invitation to you for MFA DSI Thesis Show 2024!

Join us on Wed, May 15 (1-5pm EST) at the iconic SVA Theater NYC

Our MFA candidates are engaging with an array of diverse communities, from Bronx youth to South Asian diaspora groups, Chinese-American nurses to first-generation Korean immigrant women, and tween girls in Nicaragua. These collaborations and co-creative efforts exemplify the incredible transformative power of social design.

RSVP

EVENTS

See Karen + David Proctor's show: Grabbing the Hammer Lane

NYC premier at the United Solo Festival: Grabbing the Hammer Lane: A Trucker Narrative, a searing, one act play about prodigal rebellion and fleeting moments for redemption. “An emotionally engaging solo show brimming with blue-collar poetry…” ~Orlando Weekly

GET TICKETS

EVENTS

Amazonia Installation for Earth Day NYC April 14

Come check out Grey Area Collective’s Amazonia climate prepper store from the future @shopamazonia April 14th – all day FREE in Union Square NYC We are joining dozens of other climate justice advocates, artists, and speakers! @wearegreyarea #lateristoolate

CHECK IT OUT!

BLOG

Talking with Mari Nakano:
DSI Designer In Residence

An interview with Mari Nakano, DSI Spring 2024 Designer in Residence about her explorations in “Show Love Through Food” looking at how natural cycles, heritage, nourishment, belonging, and reconnection can inform our social design practices.

Thesis 2023

Thesis 2023

A Culture of Cultures

Diva Gohil (MFA DSI ’23)

“A Culture of Cultures” aims to create a community of curious experimenters by leveraging kombucha practices as a grounds for reflection on our connection with the nonhuman bacteria present in it, and increase experimentation through peer to peer learning to build sustainable practices.