• Faculty

  • John Bruce

    Associate Professor of Design Strategies

    Email
    johnbruce@newschool.edu

    Office Location
    Parsons Faculty Hotseat

    Download vCard

    John Bruce

    Profile

    John A. Bruce is a film/video artist, researcher, strategist, and educator. He is Associate Professor of Design Strategies at Parsons School of Design, and serves as Co-Director of the Transdisciplinary Design MFA program, and Co-Director of the Consortium for Transdisciplinarity. He is currently conducting doctoral research in critical and collective fabulation for addressing ongoing coloniality, with RMIT, Design and Social Context.

    His work involves participatory artistic- and design-based research, image-oriented narrative and cinema, restorative justice, and systems approaches, contributing to conditions for transformations toward a more just and equitable world and for greater planetary health.

    He led the research and media project End of Life, informing the film End of Life, several short films, installations, exhibitions, and the studio Design for Living and Dying. His work has been exhibited internationally, including the New York Film Festival, Cinéma du Réel, Museum of the Moving Image, Doclisboa, Thessaloniki Film Festival, ICA London, e-flux, Chicago Film Festival, The Julliard School, and The Brooklyn Academy of Music, among others. He has directed several films and videos, co-created installations and experiences, served as art director for a number of feature films, and platform producer for several transmedia projects addressing social issues. He is a strategist at Forward Mapworks, a consultancy, recently providing strategy for the Light Phone, a simple phone that provokes reflection on our relationships with technology and our ability to be present. He was a 2015/16 Fellow at the Graduate Institute for Design Ethnography and Social Thought at The New School.


    Degrees Held

    Presidio (Pinchot University), MBA 2009

    School of Visual Arts, BFA 1987


    Recent Publications

    Participatory Design and Social Transformation: Images and Narratives of Crisis and Change. 2022

    Designing in Dark Times: An Arendtian Lexicon. 2020. Chapter, "Mortality." Editors: Eduardo Staszowski and Virgina Tassinari

    Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design. 2017. Chapter, “Design Strategies for Impact.” Editor: Rachel Beth Egenhoefer

    End of Life, nonfiction film. 2017. Directed by John Bruce and Paweł Wojtasik. Co-producers: HAOS Film and Train-Tracks Inc. (USA, Greece)


    Research Interests

    Fabulation, narratology, hauntology, worlding, body and land, planetary and community health, end of life, cinema, transition and transformation.


    Portfolio

    John A Bruce

    Collective Fabulation

    End of Life

    MFA Studio: Design for Living and Dying


    Current Courses

    Design-Led Research
    PGTD 5130, Fall 2024

    Intensive 1: Orientation
    PGTD 5110, Fall 2024

    Intensive 2: Workshop
    PGTD 5210, Fall 2024

    Projects Studio 1
    PGTD 5100, Fall 2024

    Future Courses

    Cinematic Tropes
    PSDS 3740, Spring 2025

    Cinematic Tropes
    PSDS 5740, Spring 2025

  • Take The Next Step

Submit your application

Undergraduates

To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

Undergraduate Adult Learners

To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Graduates

To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Close