Silvia M. Pease is an transdisciplinary designer, creative director, educator at Florida International University, and theorist. Founding Director of Pease Design, Carregal Pease, and Studio 1231, she is a multidisciplinary practitioner whose work encompasses installations, drawing, and community-based collaborations, integrated with branding and creative leadership.
Pease received a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Multimedia Design from the University of Miami in Miami, USA. She earned advanced certificates in poster and typography design at the prestigious Schule für Gestaltung in Basel, Switzerland. She was awarded a PhD in Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Theory from the Institute for Doctorate Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA) in Portland, Maine.
Her work is grounded in the conviction that art and design are purposeful, socially responsive practices capable of generating meaningful change. This commitment informs both her creative work and pedagogy, with sustained attention to materials, process, context, and communication. She has developed international collaborations through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) initiatives with the Central University of Technology in South Africa and Woxsen University in India through Who Women Are, and she serves on the International Advisory Board of the School of Arts and Design at Woxsen University. She also collaborated on the public art project Storm Drain Art, designing stencils in partnership with Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places and the Ocean Conservancy. For more than a decade, she has led Design Is Change, an ongoing initiative through which she has collaborated with more than 300 nonprofits worldwide.
Through her teaching, research, and professional practice, Pease offers students sustained learning experiences that bridge theory and practice, linking critical inquiry with socially engaged design and art. Her professional portfolio includes collaborations with Fortune 500 companies worldwide. She served for many years as creative director for Selecciones Reader’s Digest covers across the United States, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Perú, Bolivia, Colombia, and Spain; developed branding systems for Guggenheim Partners in Miami and New York; and created the visual identity for Pinta Art Fair in Miami, New York, and London. Additional collaborations include Miami History Museum, Mayoral Dermatologists, the McDonald’s Foundation, DORCAM Museum, Isaac Daniels, and Reel Code Media Apps. She has also developed collateral materials for companies engaging Latin American markets, including American Express Latinoamérica, Lufthansa Cargo, Varta Batteries, and Alamo Rent A Car, alongside a broad range of arts, education, and community-focused initiatives.
Her artwork and curatorial projects have reached wide international audiences through presentations and exhibitions at numerous venues and are held in permanent collections. These include the Sala de Exposiciones at the Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas (CíA) Spain; the Wolfsonian Museum; the Boca Raton Museum of Art; The Lowe Art Museum; the Ansin Family Museum; Jones and Metzer. David Dupuy Studios, NYC, New York; The Museo Regional in Entre Rios, Argentina; and FLAVIA. Juried Festival Latinoamericano de Video Arte. Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina, among others.
An award-winning designer, Pease’s work has been recognized by Print Magazine, AIGA, Graphis, and other international design platforms. She is a former Director of Education on the Executive Board of AIGA Miami. Her honors include the Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Miami (2010), the Faculty Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching at Florida International University (2025), the Miami Women’s Month Voices and Vision Honoree Award (2025), recognition from Power2Voice and the Doral Contemporary Museum of Art (2025), and nomination as a Fulbright recipient in Design (2010 & 2026). She is also an Honorary Board Member of the International Art and Design Advisory Board at Woxsen University (2024) and a Fellow of Project Zero Sparks through the Zaentz Professional Learning Scholarship at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (2022).
My research-practice as a transdisciplinary creative explores a constantly changing global context, where artistic production is inseparable from social, ethical, and political accountability. I approach art-design making as a relational process shaped by cultural, historical, and material conditions rather than as an isolated act. This perspective allows my work to remain responsive to complexity, interdependence, and transformation.
My methodology integrates multiple artistic media with research informed by philosophy, art history, and cultural studies. Working across disciplines, I examine how identity, authorship, and visibility are constructed and negotiated. Experimentation and process are central to my practice, enabling open inquiry and the development of work through research, making, and reflection.
I engage in both individual and collaborative projects, valuing collaboration as a site of shared knowledge and critical exchange. These projects privilege fluidity over fixed outcomes and encourage adaptive ways of thinking and making. My transnational experience as an immigrant further shapes this perspective, situating my practice between personal history and broader geopolitical conditions.
Ultimately, I understand art as a form of situated knowledge that responds to lived experience and collective realities. Through this work, I seek to create forms and practices accountable to the interconnected worlds in which they circulate.