Known Otherwise: 2026 Design MFA Thesis Exhibition

Known Otherwise: Design as Sensemaking in Times of Uncertainty

Known Otherwise is the 2026 University of Texas at Austin MFA in Design thesis exhibition. The title challenges the idea of knowledge as singular or objective, highlighting ways of knowing rooted in culture, memory, embodiment, and resistance. Known Otherwise frames sensemaking as an inherently political and personal act: to “know otherwise” is to insist that there are truths not sanctioned by institutions, not visible in mainstream discourse, yet no less real or meaningful.

Known Otherwise proposes that making sense is never neutral—it’s shaped by who we are, what we’ve lived, and where we come from. In design, it asks how materials, images, practices, and symbols can carry knowledge that is felt rather than explained, inherited rather than taught, or questioned rather than accepted. The exhibition is a site for surfacing, disrupting, and reframing what has previously been assumed or erased. Known Otherwise is both a proposition and an invitation to consider meaning not as something given, but as something made, remade, and understood anew.

Designers
Lala Amirguliyeva, Zachary Bynes, Lauren Campbell, Deana Marie Dieujuste, Kelsey Gamino, and Ariel del Vecchio

This exhibition is presented with support from the Department of Design at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Special thanks to Karol Murlak, Chair of the Department of Design, and Carma Gorman, Associate Professor, for their support in organizing this project.