Cambridge Youth Mixer + Interactive Art Exhibition

Join us for an immersive, fun experience that encourages young people to celebrate themselves and others living authentically.

Join CoDesign Collaborative and Nuvu Innovation School on Friday, October 27, 4:00 – 6:00 pm in Cambridge for a social mixer and interactive art exhibit that aims to create an immersive, fun experience that encourages young people to celebrate themselves and others living authentically. Designed by NuVu students for their peers, this event is intended primarily for young people ages 13-18 with their families.

This program concludes a month-long exploration with CoDesign Collaborative and NuVu that brought together Boston-based artists, curators, educators, and students in conversation about designing and activating public spaces that celebrate LGBTQ+ identities.

Attendance is free; registration is encouraged.

CoDesign Collaborative Awarded Sappi Ideas that Matter Grant

We are pleased to announce that we have been awarded a 2023 grant from Sappi’s Ideas that Matter to support an upcoming Inclusive Design project including a special issue of Design Museum Magazine. 

With this project, CoDesign Collaborative aims to bring awareness to the diversity of human experience and to the importance of inclusive design as a practice and approach for nondesigners and designers. Aligning with a publication focused on inclusive design, the CoDesign Collaborative will create a “Design Together” activity—a hands-on, design-focused learning activity for kids and families—that will be included within the publication, available online and distributed through community partnerships in Boston, MA and Portland, OR. CoDesign Collaborative will also engage teens through an applied design challenge focused on inclusive design.

Sappi’s Ideas that Matter grant program provides funds for creative professionals working with a non-profit to produce projects for the causes that they care about most. By funding programs designed to make a positive change in our society, Sappi has helped over 500 grant winners bring their vision, strategic thinking and innovative print and communications programs to life. This year, recipients’ projects addressed a range of issues, including restorative justice, diversity and inclusion, intergenerational engagement, education, urban segregation and community building. Since 2021, entrants have been asked to align their submissions with at least one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ensuring that grant applications are focused on critical and timely global societal concerns.

By helping to support nonprofits—that are tackling these important issues through the impact of great design and the power of print on paper—the seven selected grants will make a difference in lives and communities around the world. We’re proud to be among the Sappi 2023 Ideas that Matter grant recipients!

Click here, for more information on projects included in the Sappi Ideas That Matter grant announcement.

The Design of Identity Politics and Tribalism

This virtual roundtable discussion with TRIIIBE has been postponed. 

Stay tuned for a new time and date for our virtual roundtable discussion with TRIIIBE, four artists who explore tribalism and identity in unexpected ways. Alicia, Kelly and Sara Casilio are identical triplets who live inextricable lives. They have lived together, worked together and have made artwork together for much of their lives. In 2006, they founded TRIIIBE, an ongoing creative collaboration with photographer Cary Wolinsky.

Some have described the growing polarization in culture and politics as a “retreat to tribalism.” Critics warn that destructive tribalism is hardwired within the human brain and that tribes are “badges of identity, not of thought, and they play “zero-sum politics.” In TRIIBE’s own words, “The country has become increasingly divided, and we wanted to understand why. The answer we kept returning to was tribalism based on the assumptions that we cultivated about each other. Cary’s traveling the world had given him a vast perspective on how people identify themselves and each other. Alicia, Sara, and Kelly’s experience of being triplets had made them intimately aware of what it means to be an “us” and a “them.”

Conversation: What Does It Mean To Be a Creative Abolitionist?

Join us in Portland and online on January 26 for a conversation with Angela Medlin and Abibat Durosimi in celebration of The We Design Issue.

Abolition is a verb—a practice. It consists of the actions we take to build safety and to tear down harmful institutions. Amid nationwide uprisings against systems of oppression, individual, institutional, and societal, a new set of demands has been thrust into public consciousness, and designers and artists have answered the call. But this is not new. Artists, designers, and leaders have created new models for centuries—models of safety, creativity, and love—and places to dream beyond these constructs. As Derecka Purnell writes, “abolition is an invitation to find new answers to the problem of harm and to build new ways to prevent harm in the first place.”

CoDesign Collaborative is excited to bring back our popular Design Museum Mornings series with What Does It Mean To Be a Creative Abolitionist on January 26, 2023 in Portland and audio live streamed online. In partnership with PNCA Graphic Design, this living room-style conversation will feature longtime creative abolitionists Angela Medlin and Abibat Durosimi and will be moderated by Jocelyn Rice.

This event coincides with the forthcoming publication of The We Design Issue, which celebrates women, gender-expansive, and BIPOC designers. There will be music, coffee, tea, and treats; please join us!

Special thanks to OnPoint Community Credit Union for their partnership and support and to PNCA Graphic Design for hosting the program.

Design and Government: The Built Environment and Beyond

Join us on December 15, 2022 from 12:00-1:30 pm in Portland and online.

In the latest issue of Design Museum Magazine, Design in Government, Guest Editor Dana Chisnell set out to empower readers “to make your own corner of the world a better place.” People do not often talk about government through the lens of design. Instead, they might say governments institute policies and procedures, develop infrastructure, and create services. But, they do design, and all of us are not only a part of that process, but we are deeply affected by it, too.

Join us on Thursday, December 15, 2022, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm PT / 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm ET for Design and Government: The Built Environment and Beyond at Portland State University and online. In this hybrid discussion, Senator Akasha Lawrence Spence, Megan Horst, Associate Professor, Portland State University, and Wendy Willis, Director, Oregon’s Kitchen Table, will explore the possibilities of design and government, from the built environment and beyond, and empower attendees to take an active role in bettering the world. The conversation will be moderated by writer and educator Bruce Poinsette. 

Free program, but attendees must register in advance.

A special thanks to our partner Portland State University and Sy Adler, Interim Dean, College of Urban and Public Affairs.