Parsons School of Design
BFA Communication Design
Thesis 2016

Parsons School of Design
BFA Communication Design
Thesis 2016

The Magdalene Library
Ann Dwyer

The fallen woman is a social archetype that is used in Western history to refer to a young woman or girl who makes poor choices and is consequently expelled from respectable society. Under Queen Victoria’s reign, the term came to be closely associated with the premature surrender of a woman’s chastity. The Magdalene Library is a collection of six miniature books that contain excerpts from influential nineteenth-century texts examining the plight of the fallen woman.

The library draws on a legacy of miniature book printing, especially those that the Brontë sisters created. The language of printing and design methods from the 1800s is used to explore how Victorian sexual mores and gender roles have shaped our view of women today. Lush ornamentation, maximalism, arts and crafts movement imagery, and other design aesthetics that are often classified as stereotypically feminine are moved to the forefront. The words of Thomas Hardy, Christina Rossetti, and Émile Zola are set alongside paintings of women and lithographs of ladies’ objects. All but one are sewing-machine-bound, to connect the reader 
to a history of women’s labor and the belief that work can reform a wayward girl.

By revisiting these texts in a new format, we explore a world in which women who wish to consume are instead consumed themselves, falling through no fault of their own, and punished for breaking patriarchal social codes. The fallen woman may be thought of as a thing of the past, but gendered social codes still dominate our vision of female sexuality today. Globally, marriage markets thrive and 
women’s worth is still largely rooted in our perceived purity.

Selwa Abd

Ashley Seung Hyun Ahn

Natasha Alia

Aviva Atri

Marissa Baca

Miles Barretto

Lili Marie Bravi

Olivia Brodbar

Carla Campos-Rodriguez

Jiaying Cao

Robert Capaldo

Janet Chan

Purwa Chauhan

Patrick Chen

Sarada Chen

Linette Cheong

Eunsil Choi

Sung Ji Choi

Brittany Cutrone

Arianna De Gasperis

Paola Delucca

Rubina Melati Diran

Ann Dwyer

Dilan Emre

Douglas Escalante

Joshua Estrella

Joe Louis Evans

Marius Franc

Ceilidh Fraser

Gaby Garuz

Jiayi Ge

Stella Giavos

Meher Goel

Em Grey

Alyssa Gruber

Yu Bean Han

Cherish Hsiaohui Ho

Jasmine Hong

Jay Hsiao

Irene Hwang

Louise Pei Foong Hyde

Sanghyun Ji

Sharon (Eun Rae) Kim

Lisa Kim

Sharon Kim

David Klein

Teresa Koh

Da Min Lee

Lauren Elizabeth Lee

Stephanie Sumin Lee

Dana Li

Haowei Lin

Lucas Long

Lisa Looye

Zongliang Lou

Ankita Menon

Lauren Miller

Katie Minchak

Isabela Montalvo

Nathalie Moreno

Samah Mudasar

Shirin Muradova

Supisara Ngaovithunvong

Gabriela Nisenbaum

Inyegumena Nosegbe

Zoe Oleshansky

Yeon Soo Park

Anna Peditto

Pamela Pombo

Lisa Sakai Quinley

Josephine Rahadi

Sarah Rose Reichert

Ana Julia Rodriguez

Rick Rodriguez

Fernanda Romero

Hannah Rosen-Hamilton

Ivana Roumiantzeff-Pachkevitch

Taylor Russo

Ariella Saragossi

Nengneng Shen

Kripa Sial

Maurann Stein

Kurt Stives

Minji Sung

Vanshika Swaika

Nicholas Tanzman

Ana Cecilia Thompson Motta

Joel Tschong

Yue Wang

Laurie Waxman

Kevin Wen

Yingmeng Xu

Anna Yamoto

Jiawei Yan

Vivian Yang

Xiao Q. Yang

McLayne Ycmat

Evelyn Zhang

Xuan Zhang