Tonight we will join a panel discussion hosted by the Museum of Modern Art that explores questions on its current exhibit, Reconstruction: Architecture and Blackness in America. This conversation relates to our conversation about Placemaking because a successful place has to be one in which every voice is heard and no part of a history is marginalized.
A description of the exhibit from MoMA's website:
"How does race structure America’s cities? MoMA’s first exhibition to explore the relationship between architecture and the spaces of African American and African diaspora communities, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America presents 10 newly commissioned works by architects, designers, and artists that explore ways in which histories can be made visible and equity can be built.
Centuries of disenfranchisement and race-based violence have led to a built environment that is not only compromised but also, as the critic Ta-Nehisi Coates contends, “argues against the truth of who you are.” These injustices are embedded in nearly every aspect of America’s design—an inheritance of segregated neighborhoods, compromised infrastructures, environmental toxins, and unequal access to financial and educational institutions.
Each project in the exhibition proposes an intervention in one of 10 cities: from the front porches of Miami and the bayous of New Orleans to the freeways of Oakland and Syracuse. Reconstructions examines the intersections of anti-Black racism and Blackness within urban spaces as sites of resistance and refusal, attempting to repair what it means to be American."
Speakers:
Ifeoma Ebo is an urban designer and strategist who transforms urban spaces into platforms for equity and design excellence. She is the founding director of Creative Urban Alchemy LLC and a founder and board member of the BlackSpace Urbanist Collective.
Sekou Cooke is an architect and assistant professor at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture and principal of sekou cooke STUDIO. His research centers on the field of Hip-Hop Architecture, a theoretical movement reflecting the core tenets of hip-hop culture with the power to create meaningful impact on the built environment and give voice to the marginalized and underrepresented within design practice.
Mario Gooden AIA is principal of Huff + Gooden Architects, whose practice is dedicated to the creation of architecture as an exploration of culture and knowledge. He is a professor of practice at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation of Columbia University, where he is the codirector of the Global Africa Lab (GAL).
J. Yolande Daniels is a cofounding design principal of studioSUMO in New York. The work of studioSUMO ranges from institutional and cultural projects in education and the arts to housing, to research-oriented installations and exhibitions. Daniels is an assistant professor at USC’s School of Architecture.
Felecia Davis is an associate professor at the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Pennsylvania State University and is the director of SOFTLAB@PSU. This lab is dedicated to developing soft computational materials and textiles for Penn State students and faculty and industry and community partners engaged in collaborative research projects.
Peggy Shepard is cofounder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice. She serves on the Executive Committee of the National Black Environmental Justice Network and the Board of Advisors of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and was the first female chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
This event is free must you must register via MoMA's website, www.moma.org/calendar/events/6989. |