The discipline of graphic design has been a fundamental, but often siloed, facet of design practice. Stylistic typography, color choice, and composition have spoken in the stead of Black designers. Graphic design has co-created any traceable history of the Black aesthetic into the material. Conceptualizing the intricacies, logics, intentions, and visual modes of Black graphic designers works to define and make reference to Black visuality throughout time. 

The work of Polymode and Poche Design both give reference to Black visuality: odes to their West African cultural heritage, traditional architectural education, deep knowledge of the Black archive to offer two disparate, but fully embodied approaches to graphic design. Polymode is the brainchild of Silas Munro, and espouses their commitment to poetic research as an original practice of finding balance between all knowledges, and methods while maintaining a centrism on designing for the context through inquiry. Poche Design has translated the work of architects Morgan and Tobi, into a mission-driven design studio across graphics and brand design to tell stories that catalyze the important work of communities and organizations. At the core of these two professionals is a commitment to storytelling, and at the heart of their practices are their contributions to education as professors. 

Polymode is a bi-coastal, queer, and minority-owned graphic design studio leading the edge of design with thought-provoking work for clients across the cultural sphere. We collaborate with innovative businesses, community-based organizations, and those shifting the world through social justice. By advocating for clear and transparent structures of communication, compensation, and relationships, Polymode creates a radical approach to design where the product emerges from a process of mutual respect and enjoyment.

Poche Design STUDIO, poche “the word for the black portion of an architectural plan that represents solids,” is a black women-owned design studio who’s mission is to occupy and amplify the poche, or Black space in design. Working at the intersection of architecture and design, Poche creates impactful designs for clients and customers, which over a 100 clients served total projects since their start in 2020.

This episode is dedicated to thinking about the discipline of graphic design, its critical role in the visualization and representation of design, and most importantly, the role of graphic design in expanding the visual justice of Blackness in our public consciousness and graphic materiality. Our central question is: how can a black orientation to graphic design deepen the role and function of visualization in architecture fields? And more importantly, how can a black form of graphic design offer something entirely distinct and why do we need that? 

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Silas Munro is an artist, designer, writer, and curator engaging multi-modal practices that inspire people to be the best versions of themselves in order to effect positive change on society as a whole. He earned his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Munro is Founding Faculty, Chair Emeritus for the MFA Program in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is the curator and author of Strikethrough: Typographic Messages of Protest which opened at Letterform Archive in 2022. Munro was a contributor to W. E. B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America and co-authored the first BIPOC-centered design history course, Black Design in America: African Americans and the African Diaspora in Graphic Design 19–21st Century.

Tobi Ashiru is a creative problem solver, leader and designer. With a mission to change the world through design, she strives to push the boundaries of creativity. Born in Nigeria and raised in South Africa, Tobi seeks to create contextually relevant work that celebrates blackness. She’s an interdisciplinary creative with diverse experiences as an architectural designer, installation artist, forever student, educator, and business owner. She holds a Bachelor of Architectural Studies, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa; and a Master of Architecture, University of Southern California. Tobi is also adjunct professor at A-Lab Program and undergraduate architecture courses at the University of California. 

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 4 is hosted by Tyler White, a dual candidate in  the Masters of Urban Planning and Master of Design Studies, Narratives program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Silas Munro and Tobi Ashiru first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

When considering the exemplars of the vernacular, not often is the sonic a legitimate domain of design. For Blackness, it has been a crucial method of imagining, visualizing, storytelling, humanizing, or making sense of the world we inhabit. The translation of the experiences within life into comprehensible sonic pleasures is a ritual across the Diaspora. From the township’s birth of Amapiano, and the project’s birth of Hip-Hop, we compose from the interstices of place the ability to embody the feeling of being Black. The everyday experience becomes a legible design element to the larger sonic materiality of inhabiting Black consciousness.

dweller has been unearthing the Black origins of electronic music and informing political discourse through provoking, and expansive expert interviews understood in the lens of Black electronica. Building knowledge of Blackness through music and materiality has been the focus of Ryan Clarke’s geological investigations into the soils, landscapes, and architectures that have shaped the sonic traditions of Black Life in Louisiana. His work speaks to an Undercommons of cultural life teeming with spirit, sound, and sediment. The geographic enclaves of Black communities, rather forced, assimilated, or indigenous, are innovative hubs of cultural materiality that inform the design of its place. Documenting these materialities can add the intangible, the unteachable, and the unseen to design practices to consider the complexities of being embodied in space. Designing from these practices can begin collecting history into a contemporary vision of a Black spatial ontology. 

This episode is dedicated to taking an expansive approach to design, one that is focused on and based on the multimedia, and multidisciplinary techniques approached by Black artists, and music organizers to create safe sonic and physical spaces for Black communities, and specifically, Black Queer communities to flourish. How can we learn from the authenticity of your work and approaches?

Full Transcript

A tonal geologist from the northern rim of the Gulf of Mexico, Ryan Christopher Clarke notices the passage of time as both a trained coastal sedimentologist and artist-researcher as an Editor and Director of Educational Programming at dweller electronics, a group dedicated towards providing afrological counterpoint within an otherwise eurologically dominant music industry. His personal works investigate local cultural objects and their metaphysical communications with their proximal geological landscape.

Knowing intimately the ways his home is at great risk of physical and social loss, he finds ways to not only document this loss quantitatively in scientific research but qualitatively with works that aim to articulate the vernacular knowledges his people share with the Mississippi River Delta and its distributaries. By interpreting the various articulations of Black music as a depositional record, he views the progression of technology and culture at-large as downstream of Black innovation in dialog with their surrounding environment under the proposition of geologizing blackness.

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 4 is hosted by Tyler White, a dual candidate in  the Masters of Urban Planning and Master of Design Studies, Narratives program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Ryan Clarke first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

Music remains one of the most intact genealogical records of Blackness. Across the diaspora, music has been a critical asset in maintaining culture, preserving experiences and communicating a sonic epistemology derived from the material condition of being Black. The celebratory, reflective, impassioned, and downtrodden moods throughout the canon of Black music articulate a unique spectrum of the ways that Black people have made sense of themselves. At the intersections of Black identity, and queerness, music has been an innovative methodology of affirming existence and being playful with perceptions of standardness, normativity, deviance, and mischief. The composition and production of Black music genres– from house, to electronic, to pop, to rock, etc– reflect a typology of sonic design. Including music into the canon of design, approaching producers as sonic architects, and singers as vocal designers, we can begin to consider sound in space, buildings, parks, and other built environment sites as a critical consideration for the excellence of its design. 

Serpent composes music that is distinct and embodies visuality. Each song is an effective vision of place, mood, and feeling. He is also a spatialist. His music often references a range of sites from the bedroom, to the city of Baltimore in which his feeling within those spaces is transmuted into an original song. Building a space of communion and fellowship, ‘Serpents Parlor,’ an affinity group for Black men, is the artist’s newest manifestation of translating his need for safe spaces for Black men into a place of shared reflection and care. 

​​serpentwithfeet is simply letting the pendulum swing nowadays. The Baltimore, Maryland-born singer-songwriter, is taking the natural steps as a versatile talent from chapter to chapter in his career. serpent’s third album GRIP is the result of these latest steps. GRIP finds its home on the dance floor of the club and the intimate moments that happen there and afterward, no matter the location.

Serpent’s third album explores the intimate forms of physical touch and how they occur. Whether it be a grip around the waist or the face, serpentwithfeet managed to explore all angles thanks to the second lens he looked through. 

Serpent set his attention on the world that he called home in the important adult years of his life, and with this, we see a study of community on GRIP. This community had a huge impact on the LA-based singer, and through ten songs, he gives it its flowers with a body of work that highlights the moments that are most close to the heart. Throughout his eight-year career, serpent has exhibited this versatility through experimental R&B music. Three years removed from his second album DEACON, serpentwithfeet continues to push the limits of his artistry with his third album GRIP.

This episode is dedicated to taking an expansive approach to design, one that is focused on and based on the multimedia, and multidisciplinary techniques approached by Black artists, and music organizers to create safe sonic and physical spaces for Black communities, and specifically, Black Queer communities to flourish. How can we learn from the authenticity of your work and approaches?

Full Transcript

​​serpentwithfeet is simply letting the pendulum swing nowadays. The Baltimore, Maryland-born singer-songwriter, is taking the natural steps as a versatile talent from chapter to chapter in his career. serpent’s third album GRIP is the result of these latest steps. GRIP finds its home on the dance floor of the club and the intimate moments that happen there and afterward, no matter the location.

Serpent’s third album explores the intimate forms of physical touch and how they occur. Whether it be a grip around the waist or the face, serpentwithfeet managed to explore all angles thanks to the second lens he looked through. 

Serpent set his attention on the world that he called home in the important adult years of his life, and with this, we see a study of community on GRIP. This community had a huge impact on the LA-based singer, and through ten songs, he gives it its flowers with a body of work that highlights the moments that are most close to the heart. Throughout his eight-year career, serpent has exhibited this versatility through experimental R&B music. Three years removed from his second album DEACON, serpentwithfeet continues to push the limits of his artistry with his third album GRIP.

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio. 

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 4 is hosted by Tyler White, a dual candidate in  the Masters of Urban Planning and Master of Design Studies, Narratives program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post serpentwithfeet first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

Educators and curators Mpho Matsipa and Antawan Byrd delve into Pan-Africanism, counternarratives, and the transformative power of art and archives. Matsipa’s “African Mobilities” challenges conventional representation, while Byrd explores diaspora narratives. They discuss the impact of mobility and knowledge, innovative archiving, and the broader implications of Pan-Africanism in shaping diverse voices within the art and architectural archive. 

Mpho Matsipa, an educator, researcher, and curator, and Antawan Byrd, an Assistant Professor of Art History and Associate Curator of Photography and Media, delve into the complexities of Pan-Africanism, identity, and the power of counternarratives within art and archives. Matsipa’s “African Mobilities” project challenges conventional socio-spatial norms and representation, while Byrd explores themes of diaspora, connection, and narrative in his curatorial work. They examine the impact of mobility, voices, and knowledge on counter-cartographies, highlighting innovative archiving and cataloging approaches, with a reflection on the broader implications of Pan-Africanism, particularly its role in embracing diverse voices and identities within the art and architectural archive. 

Full Transcript

Antawan I. Byrd is a College Fellow and Assistant Professor in Art History at Northwestern University and an Associate Curator of Photography and Media at the Art Institute of Chicago. He edited (with Felicia Mings) the catalogue, The People Shall Govern! Medu Art Ensemble and the Anti-Apartheid Poster 1979-1985, based on an exhibition he co-curated in 2019 at the Art Institute. At the Art Institute, Byrd also curated Mimi Cherono Ng’ok: Closer to the Earth, Closer to My Own Body (2021). He co-curated the 2nd Lagos Biennial of Contemporary Art (2019), Kader Attia: Reflecting Memory at Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art (2017) and was an associate curator for the 10th Bamako Encounters, Biennale of African Photography (2015). From 2009 to 2011, he was a Fulbright fellow and curatorial assistant at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos. In 2017, he received the Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association. Byrd completed his PhD in Art History at Northwestern University in 2022. He is currently co-curating a major exhibition that surveys the art and cultural dimensions of Pan-Africanism from the 1920s to the present. This exhibition is slated to open at the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall of 2024, before traveling to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, and later to the KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels.

Mpho Matsipa is an educator, researcher, and curator. Matsipa holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, pursued as a Fulbright Scholar. She has taught at The Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the University of the Witwatersrand, The Cooper Union for Art and Science and Columbia University. She has written critical essays on art and architecture and curated several exhibitions, discursive platforms and experimental architectural research, including the Venice International Architecture Biennale (2008; 2021); chief curator of African Mobilities at the Architecture Museum, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (2018); and Studio-X Johannesburg, in South Africa (2014-2016).

Mpho Matsipa was previously a researcher at Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER), a Loeb Fellow (2022) at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in 2021-2022.

Her curatorial and research interests intersect with decolonial urban studies, experimental architecture and visual art. Mpho is an associate curator for the LOO-bOOm-bashi Biennale in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2024).

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 3 is hosted by Esesua Ikpefan, Doctor of Design Studies student and Tomi Seyi Laja, 2023 alum of the Master of Architecture II program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Mpho Matsipa and Antawan Byrd first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

The practices of Akil and Seth Scafe Smith from RESOLVE Collective and filmmaker Ama Gisèle explore the fascinating realm where design transcends boundaries, drawing inspiration from a myriad of artistic disciplines and visual cultures. As they redefine ‘local’ in architecture, they engage with profound questions of identity and representation.  Through Gisèle’s experimental documentary, “Convergence,” and Akil and Seth’s distinctive approach to community engagement, their creative processes place a strong emphasis on inclusivity and representation, pushing designers to engage the intricacies of labor organization and adaptability within their work.  

Full Transcript

Ama Gisèle is an artist, writer and filmmaker from Queens, NY. She graduated from Amherst College with a B.A. in English and Black Studies. There, she completed her first short story collection entitled “there are sharp things in the ground and her hands are soft.” From there, she expanded her practice to filmmaking—writing and directing her first short film entitled Be Like Me in 2020. Her second and most recent project is called Convergence, an experimental documentary and dance piece that explores intimacy, connection, and vulnerability.

Resolve is an interdisciplinary design collective that combines architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges. They have delivered numerous projects, workshops, publications, and talks in the UK and across Europe, all of which look toward realizing just and equitable visions of change in our built environment. 

Much of their work aims to provide platforms for the production of new knowledge and ideas, whilst collaborating and organizing to help build resilience in their communities. An integral part of this way of working means designing with and for young people and under-represented groups in society. 

Resolve collective’s ‘design’ practices encompass both physical and systemic intervention, exploring ways of using a project’s site as a resource and working with different communities as stakeholders in the short and long-term management of projects. For resolve, design carries more than aesthetic value; it is also a mechanism for political and socio-economic change. 

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 3 is hosted by Esesua Ikpefan, Doctor of Design Studies student and Tomi Seyi Laja, 2023 alum of the Master of Architecture II program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Ama Gisèle and RESOLVE Collective first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

Kennedy Yanko, a sculptor, and installation artist and Camille Bacon, a Chicago-based writer, explore the intersections of art, spirituality, and abstraction. Kennedy’s innovative use of found metal and paint skin pushes the boundaries of visual perception, while Camille’s writing delves deep into the world of Black feminist practices and their connection to aesthetics. Join them They discuss the transformative power of abstraction in art and design pushing artists and designers to explore the complex relationship between creative process, cultural heritage and spirituality within the Black diaspora. 

Full Transcript

Kennedy Yanko (b. 1988, St. Louis, MO) is a sculptor and installation artist working in found metal and paint skin. Yanko deploys her materials in ways that explore the limitations of optic vision, underlining the opportunities we miss when looking with eyes alone. Her methods reflect a dual abstract expressionist-surrealist approach that centers the seen and unseen factors that affect, contribute to, and moderate human experience. 

Select installations from 2021-2022 include “White, Passing” at the Rubell Museum (2021, Miami, FL) where Yanko was an Artist in Residence, “By means other than the known senses” at the Unlimited Section of Art Basel (2022, Basel, Switzerland), and “No more Drama” at the Brooklyn Museum (2022, Brooklyn, NY). In March 2023, she debuted her solo exhibition, “Humming on Life,” with Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York.  

Yanko’s institutional exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; University of South Florida; Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA). Her work is included in notable private museums, namely: The Bunker Artspace, West Palm Beach (Beth Rudin DeWoody), Espacio Tacuari, Buenos Aires (Juan Vergez and Patricia Pearson), the Rubell Museum, Miami (Don and Mera Rubell). Most recently, Yanko’s work was acquired by the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria. 

Camille Bacon is a Chicago-based writer who is building a “sweet black writing life” as inspired by the words of poet Nikky Finney and the infinite wisdom of the Black feminist tradition more broadly. Through a methodology that straddles rigorous research and divinely derived oration, she aims to excavate how aesthetics can catalyze a collective reorientation towards relation, connection and intimacy and away from apathy and amnesia. Ultimately, her work serves as the external embodiment of her commitment to amplifying the wayward ingenuity of the Black creative spirit. Camille’s work has appeared in i-D Magazine, Frieze, Cultured Magazine, Studio Magazine, Momus, The Funambulist, Air Afrique Magazine, and Burnaway, among other outlets. She currently manages McArthur Binion’s studio in Chicago, IL and formerly held positions at GRAY Gallery, Chicago, IL, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY. She is also the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of Jupiter Magazine along with fellow writer Daria Simone Harper. 

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 3 is hosted by Esesua Ikpefan, Doctor of Design Studies student and Tomi Seyi Laja, 2023 alum of the Master of Architecture II program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Kennedy Yanko and Camille Bacon first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello, an industrial designer known for his community-led approach and Curry J. Hackett, a transdisciplinary designer, and public artist, explore the intricate relationships between culture, narrative, and place in design. They delve into the significance of mobility and its connection to Black identities, while also discussing their engagement with urbanism, landscape, and materiality. Through the lens of history and narrative, they share their methodologies and inspirations, shedding light on how their work contributes to reimagining Black experiences and fostering empathy, in this thought-provoking discussion on agency, audience, and the transformative power of design. 

Full Transcript

Nifemi Marcus-Bello is an industrial designer based in Nigeria, known for his community-led, and ethnographic-conscious design approach. Marcus-Bello graduated from the University of Leeds with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Product Design and received the “Potential for Social Change” award from the University of Leeds School of Mechanical Engineering. In 2017, he founded nmbello studio, focusing on furniture, product, and installation design. In 2021 he received the “Life Enhancer of the Year” award by Wallpaper* Magazine and in 2022, the HUBLOT Design Prize. 

Marcus-Bello is also the founder and lead designer at nmbello Studio, currently based in Lagos, Nigeria, with a design ethos rooted in empathy. At nmbello studio, design is about believe in understanding what is available, without trying to force an ego on to the process. Over the years, the studio aims to rid itself of pre-existing ideas and allow its process dictate design output. As a design studio, nmbello Studio embraces the newness and lack of a true design process as it frees us up for an opportunity to be reintroduced to the familiar with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. 

Curry J. Hackett is a transdisciplinary designer, public artist, and educator. His practice, Wayside, synthesizes cultural and ecological narratives to envision meaningful work in the public realm. Noteworthy projects include the Howard Theatre Walk of Fame and the DC High Water Mark project. Hackett began his academic career in 2019 at his alma mater Howard University, and has since taught at Yale University, Carleton University, City College of New York, the University of Tennessee–Knoxville, and is a core member of the anti-racist design justice school Dark Matter U. 

Currently, Curry is completing his Master of Architecture in urban design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2022, Hackett was named an inaugural Journal of Architectural Education fellow and a finalist for the Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize. In 2023, Hackett won the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Creative Achievement Award for his “Subjective Waters” studio, which explored Black culture and water, and was named a grantee by the Graham Foundation for his ongoing research project, Drylongso, which explores relationships between Blackness, geography, and land. 

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 3 is hosted by Esesua Ikpefan, Doctor of Design Studies student and Tomi Seyi Laja, 2023 alum of the Master of Architecture II program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Nifemi Marcus-Bello and Curry J. Hackett first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

Sean Canty’s architectural practice is deeply rooted in and draws from other artistic disciplines and visual cultures. By expanding his source of references beyond the field of Architecture, Canty draws from visionaries like Basquiat to integrate questions of identity and representation in subtle ways. His work pushes us to ask how we can create spaces that honor and reflect on tragic moments in the past while bringing joy to and benefitting hurting communities today.

Sean Canty is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and the founder of Studio Sean Canty (SSC), an architecture practice based in Cambridge, MA. Canty is also one of the founding principals of Office III (OIII), an experimental architectural collective that spans New York, San Francisco, and Cambridge. Selected as a finalist for the 2016 MoMA PS1 Young Architects competition, OIII has completed a Welcome Center for Governors Island and exhibited work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Canty was the recipient of the 2020 Richard Rogers Fellowship. Prior to joining the faculty at the GSD, Canty held teaching positions at the Cooper Union, University California Berkeley, and California College of the Arts. He received an M.Arch from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a B.Arch from California College of the Arts.

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 2 is hosted by Tara Oluwafemi and Darien Carr, students in the Master of Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Sean Canty first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

Lesley Lokko questions the efficacy of a problem-based architectural education and suggests a new pedagogy that liberates the students’ relationship to design. Looking to fiction, metaphor, analogy, Africa, and industries in the larger design sphere, we discuss the possibilities to expand the bounds of the field of Architecture.

Lesley Lokko graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, with a BSc(Arch) in 1992, and an MArch in 1995, and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of London in 2007. In 2004, she published her first novel, Sundowners, a Guardian Top 40 Bestseller, following up with eleven more novels. Lokko has taught architecture all over the globe. In partnership with the University of Johannesburg, she established the Graduate School of Architecture (GSA) in 2014/2015 and became the director of School. She is currently founder and director of the African Futures Institute in Accra, Ghana. In 2021, she was appointed as the curator of the 18th Venice Biennale of Architecture, set to open in 2023.

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers, and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 2 is hosted by Tara Oluwafemi and Darien Carr, students in the Master of Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Lesley Lokko first appeared on African American Design Nexus.

Dana McKinney describes her time at the GSD as a balancing act of being a student and an activist. She shares the journey that started the African American Design Nexus, the Black in Design conference, and other initiatives she was essential to founding at the GSD. We learn how she has continued her work as an activist in her architectural practice.

Dana is an architect and urban planner, who is an outspoken advocate for social justice and equity through design. During Dana’s time at the Harvard GSD, she helped to establish the inaugural Black in Design Conference, Map the Gap, and the African American Design Nexus. She subsequently worked at Gehry Partners where she focused on the LA River Master Plan, Southeast Los Angeles Cultural Center, and other river-related projects.

Dana is currently the Development Manager at Adre, an equity-centered development company in Portland, Oregon that seeks to develop buildings that create social and economic benefits for Black, Indigenous, and people of color through the creation of affordable homes, mixed-used developments, and facilities for mission-driven organizations. Dana also established Studio KINN where she consults on social justice and equity design problems.

In 2021, Dana co-founded enFOLD Collective with Megan Echols, a fellow GSD alumna.

You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher.

Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.

The Nexus Season 2 is hosted by Tara Oluwafemi and Darien Carr, students in the Master of Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.

For all inquiries, please email [email protected].

The post Dana McKinney first appeared on African American Design Nexus.