508 W Beach St is Brandon Bibby’s (Bibby) earliest memory of a building. The complexity of navigating one’s spatial position in Arkansas was the earliest recognition of the mediation of race and class in the built environment. At Beach St, the 900 square foot home provided the basis for a career in preservation, or “a gift and appreciation of our ancestors’ sacrifices in the intention designed with love for our collective history, heritage, memory, and culture.” “Bibby,” the affirmative name acknowledging his family’s past as his purpose for architecture, receives architecture as an interpersonal affair of preserving and stewarding spaces of the Black diaspora. 

In his own practice, the people and culture are first, and design “happens.” For Black architects, he recognizes a displacement of the “ego-driven” archetype and an acceptance of making space that would not exist if no one else had. The beneficence of these Black architects does not solely impact Black communities but, in turn, has created typologies of design that reflect the spaces of radical inclusion. Bibby’s work with the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund (AACHAF) reflects his belief that architecture has a social good and can make a change for the social betterment of all. The AACHAF is narrating the stories embedded across the country of Black designers and communities forging design excellence through a sovereign craftsmanship informed by their local condition. 

Historically, the exclusion of Black communities from accessing the materials to design and produce space has meant an erasure of our contributions to formalist architecture or the reorientation of our work as “vernacular.” What preservation provides is the ability to assert the nameless designers that exist in the archive of Black history. And to assert these designers with their unique capacities and expert capabilities in making lasting architectural heritage in the interstitial social, political, and economic conditions. Even in the loss of urban renewal and contemporary gentrification, the disconnection of African-American communities to one another has intentionally severed us from a deep connection to place. Preservation means unearthing these connections and holding these memories with us towards change. 

This episode Black Preservation, or how we know what to fight for? is dedicated to intersecting recent historic preservation work for Black architectural works and history, with a sustained realization of the role of advocacy/protest in the design process of Black spaces throughout history. We are seeking to forge a new definition for preservation and design within a Black context and aesthetic to be able to attend to all of the past + that which can be built for the future.

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Brandon Bibby is a senior preservation architect with the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, helping them manage the Conserving Black Modernism program. Bibby, ASID, AIA, NCARB, NOMA, WELL AP, is an artist, activist and architect raised in the plains of Arkansas, where the Delta meets the Ozarks. He is a multidisciplinary researcher and designer invested in questioning narrative, representation and access in the built environment and its impacts on memory and behavior for marginalized communities. He is a next-generation preservationist motivated by movement, memory and culture in contemporary Black space. 

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 Bibby first appeared on The Design Nexus.

The core of environmental practice is a resonance with the land at the register of the self and with concern for sustaining the productivity of the land for generations to come. Across the Black Belt South and Appalachia, Black women have been stewarding the cultural practice of memory and kinship to their daughters and children to come. The generations of learning have fortified Black approaches to land management and practice that require a deep reciprocity with giving to the land what is taken. Mavis Gragg’s great-great-grandmother, self-entitled “America,” laid claim to a nascent entrepreneurial spirit, owning land in her native western North Carolina. Reflections of childhood embody an inherency with nature, not by name but through experience, walking to school in the forest and spending time with family. Nature enshrouds these communities in a solace that emerged to provide rest and healing. Both of these “country girls” take heed from the caretaking methods of their foremothers to take care of all things with respect and love for their agency. Memory becomes a story of how to do things and how to keep things. 

At the center of Mavis’s practice is the affirmation of the act of humanity and resistance that is Black ownership. To combat the challenges around heirs’ property, Gragg has co-located resources for Black communities to govern their land through legal consultation, digitizing official documentation, and imagining new methods of buying and purchasing intra-Black communities. Euneika’s work brings light and joy to the heaviest of topics around race, justice, and our country’s deep history. As a designer and creative artist, her work defines the “social architectural practice” of how Black women hold and make space. This practice of translation combines community organizing and political education to produce a public history trail that makes visible the endless contributions of generations of Black women to shaping the productivity and cultural importance of the South. 

The agricultural sovereignty that Black communities transported to the Americas, through their forced enslavement, was an intelligence and manipulation of the landscape for the abundant capital surplus that has made the modern economic system. The landscape intelligentsia of Black labor and land practice manifests beyond high outputs of raw material, but also in the cultural stewardship of making meaning of a violent place through ethics of care, rest, leisure, and entertainment. Without the committed work of Black women through time, the longevity of Black life and Black culture would have been reduced to its intended decline and eradication. Through the preservation of Black land ownership and the maintenance of Black land sovereignty, Afro-ecofeminism becomes history’s ledger of the conservation of land and Black futurity. When we align our history to the care practices of respect, reflection, and reciprocity with the landscapes that sustain us, and even those that are constructed to oppress us, we become embodied knowledges of how to live beyond land as an object

This episode, Afro-Ecofeminism and Preserving Black Ecologies, is dedicated to exploring the intersection of design, land preservation, and land reclamation within a notion of the critical role of Black women and Black femmes in shepherding the cultural and ecological knowledge that sustains the generationality of Blackness. How can understanding the land as a domain of history and future reshape the way we design and preserve the potential of Black life? More importantly, in this moment where there is the Great Return, how does reorienting Black focus and investment to the South maintain, repair, and project a new trajectory? Where are designers in this fight? 

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Euneika Rogers-Sipp  (artist name: Ndgo Bunting) is a planning and design artist, a social entrepreneur, as well as the Founder of the Destination Design School of Agricultural Estates in Atlanta, Georgia. Most recently, she launched an ongoing exploration, “Digging DuBois,” a regional reparations ecology project on spatial solutions to decades of racial health inequities impacting descendants of enslaved Africans in the Southern United States Black Belt Region. Previously, Euneika was Executive Director of Regenerative Design at the Sustainable Rural Regenerative Enterprises for Families (SURREF), where she coordinated the Black Belt Community Based Tourism Wealth Creation Program and delivered design interventions such as the Family Water Access Project, Black Belt Agricultural Homestays Project, and a Community Regeneration Education curriculum.

Mavis Gragg is a self-described “death and dirt” attorney and conservation professional with nearly twenty years of experience. Mavis’ mission is to empower generational, family real estate owners, especially heirs’ property owners, with knowledge and tools and to raise the visibility of numerous ways in which heirs’ property is important to affordable housing, rural and urban planning, climate resiliency, and markets. She is the co-founder and CEO of HeirShares, which is building groundbreaking technology to facilitate affordable solutions for family real estate ownership. A 2024 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Mavis previously led the eight-state Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention Program and The Gragg Law Firm, PLLC.

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 Euneika (Ndgo) Rogers-Sipp and Mavis Gragg first appeared on The Design Nexus.

“Architecture as a cultural expression” informs the intangible pull for many Black architects, less concerned with the building and recontextualizing architecture as cultural heritage. Narratives, stories, archival work, and politics animate the interests of Cousin-Wilson’s practice of architecture. The parallelism of architecture and curation can be understood in how these disciplines distill, select, and co-manage the production of a new way of existing in or navigating a relation to space. 

As co-founder of The Studio of Contemporary Architecture (SOCA), Wilson has made visible and reinterpreted the cultural ingenuity of material and making across the Black diaspora. SOCA has helped organizations like Black Lives Matter Canada bring their political vision to life through building style and design techniques that evoke the capacity for a structure to bring safety to the expression of Black life. The reflexive approach of SOCA and Wilson to the dialogue architecture contributes and emanates from within contemporary culture and characterizes the essence of their practice. Deep engagement and research with both clients and community groups drive their design process. The outcomes bring intimacy and interiority to the facade of structures, buildings, and housing typologies whose origins reflect a history of Black adaptation. The proof of their design excellence has been in narrating their research around Black specific conditions to illustrate universal aims and lessons for architectures of climate adaptation and mobility in the face of environmental crisis. 

SOCA has placed itself in the moment of the political rhetoric and reckoning to materialize the diverse urban imaginary that occupies the cultural melange that makes up Canada. Wilson’s work is deeply collaborative, not only within SOCA but beyond the scale of the building and into the individual lives of Black designers in the country.  Wilson’s rise in shaping new architectures in Canada emerged from co-founding a collaborative of Black architects and interior designers, BETA, to take stock of and build the ranks of engaged Black designers practicing in the country. Their approach to engaged architecture embodies the rigor of using history to understand the current situation and design, intending to change the physical and relational experiences of the most vulnerable within the built environment. 

This episode, Black Curatorial Practices, is in honor of architects’ growing role in influencing contemporary thought’s material, cultural, artistic, and sonic disciplines through curation, design, and politics. Our goal here is to understand how perspectives from outside of American Blackness are redefining and reconnecting the Diaspora through shared practices of the local role of Black communities in shaping the geologic, architectural, and public lives of our built environments. I ask, how then is ‘curating’ a tool of power and care? How can the process and outcomes of ‘curating’ be a corrective to the architectural canon, and futuring the capacity for Black existence to be a known contributor to innovating material culture, as it develops?

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Tura Cousins Wilson has the professional experience and interest span a variety of scales including exhibition design, multi-unit housing, private homes, cultural spaces, and urban design. He is equally compelled by exploring the craft and intimacy of small scale architecture along with the redemptive qualities of reconstituting existing buildings and spaces.  The Studio of Contemporary Architecture (SOCA) is an architecture and urban design studio dedicated to inclusive city building and the creation of beautiful spaces. Founded on the belief that architecture both shapes and is shaped by the contemporary condition, the studio is deeply engaged in research and the broader discourse of architecture’s impact on culture, the environment and the shaping of cities. The studio is the recipient of the 2023 Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture, a travelling grant allowing the studio to explore sites of Black joy and community globally. SOCA is also a contributor representing Canada at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture and has been awarded the 2023 Emerging Architectural Practice Award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

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 Tura Cousins-Wilson first appeared on The Design Nexus.

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? 

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?

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.