Nails for an Invisible City

By Emerson Goo

Nothing about my appearance immediately reveals that I’m profoundly deaf. I have what some would call an “invisible disability”, but that is perhaps a misnomer.

“Good design is invisible.”
How many times and in how many forms has this common-sense aphorism been repeated? The phrase makes a tidy example of itself: it is flexible and memorable enough that it has become an ideal for anyone doing creative work, but few can say where it originates from. Like the design it promotes, it is seamless, betraying no mark of authorship, and integrated into its environment as if by unseen hands.

Nothing about my appearance immediately reveals that I’m profoundly deaf. I have what some would call an “invisible disability,” but that is perhaps a misnomer. If you scrutinize how I walk, talk, and look at others, it would become apparent that I move differently through a world not designed for me. Nevertheless, since most people never look that closely, my deafness is de facto invisible. In my interactions with hearing society, I have a choice: to pass as hearing or to disclose my deafness. Passing comes with the convenience of knowing no one will treat me differently just because I’m deaf. But it is also isolating. Simple, routine interactions can be lipread, but spontaneous, in-depth conversations—the stuff of social life—are not possible.

Disclosure has its own cost-benefit analysis involved. Announcing my deafness makes me vulnerable to others, and responses aren’t always congenial. To many institutions, it represents a liability. But disclosure helps me access accommodations that allow me to work, learn, and communicate effectively as a deaf landscape architecture student. This essay is a disclosure, but it is not a rejection of invisibility. The rhetoric of diversity and inclusion often champions representation in the form of visibility, but denies the unseen and the imperceptible as a source of agency and self-determination. Identity cannot be reduced to a desire for identification any more than invisibility can be reduced to a neutral precept of “good design.” Invisibility is a multidimensional concept, at turns limiting and liberating, and should trouble notions of what makes design “good.” It is a critical tool for designers interested in advancing social justice in the built environment.

Invisibility and Accessibility
Architects and landscape architects have long stressed the importance of designing for all the senses, not just vision. But design for whom? In The Eyes of the Skin, one of the most commonly assigned books in design curriculums, Juhani Pallasmaa laments a modernist culture that has turned architecture into imagery, neglecting its aural, olfactory, and tactile qualities. “The hegemonic eye seeks domination…to weaken our capacity for empathy, compassion, and participation with the world,” he writes, appearing to gesture toward engaging those with different sensory abilities.1 But in a later essay, “Stairways of the Mind,” Pallasmaa claims that, “Today’s planning regulations, which aim at helping the handicapped, tend to eliminate steps of the townscape and public buildings altogether, and thus deprive architecture of one of its most powerful expressive means. We are all becoming handicapped.”2 Pallasma defends stairs as a romantic, truly “feeling” architecture, excluding disabled people from sensory pleasures in favor of ableist norms. The nondisabled, it seems, are the only ones in reach of a total aesthetic experience: the legitimate clients of a multisensory architecture.

There is nothing romantic about a lack of access, as disability activists demonstrated when they crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capitol in 1990. Their protest catalyzed the passage of the ADA and the adoption of accessible design standards. But even these standards fixate on vision disabilities, and disabilities that are visible (namely wheelchair users). Deaf landscape architect Alexa Vaughn-Brainard found that the needs of deaf people in public spaces were not addressed by the ADA. In response, she developed DeafScape, a way of applying DeafSpace principles to landscape design.3

One DeafScape principle considers how deaf people may be startled by someone suddenly approaching them from behind without warning. Vaughn-Brainard suggests managing sightlines by creating enclosed outdoor spaces: for example, using highbacked benches or walled planters to block back views, ensuring that people in the space are approached from the side or front. For Vaughn-Brainard, DeafScape principles exemplify universal design that, “[goes] beyond the bare minimums of the ADA to create more access.”4 If designers want space to be truly multisensory, accessibility must be a logic of universal design that manifests in both visible and invisible ways, not merely a tacked-on afterthought.

Invisibility and Care Work
Frank De Lima, a popular comedian in Hawai’i, has a bit that goes like this:

Question: In what neighborhood on O‘ahu are three languages spoken fluently at different times of the day or year? Answer: Kahala, where English is spoken at night, Tagalog during the day when the residents leave for work and are replaced by Filipino gardeners and maids, and Japanese during Golden Week. 5

This joke is emblematic of Hawai’i’s ethnic humor, which often casts Filipinos as a racial punchline. Kahala is an upper-class neighborhood dominated by East Asian and White residents and a common source of clients for local landscape firms. Working over the summer for a landscape maintenance company, I saw this daily rhythm play out myself, not in Kahala, but at on-base military residential communities. Inspecting countless irrigation controllers, drip lines, and spray heads, I began to wonder whether residents would notice I had made any changes or repairs to their irrigation systems. If design is visible work, maintenance is invisible work: an essential process done out of sight and mind. When people leave home for the day, we roll in, and by the time they’re back, we’re gone. To unexpectedly see someone pruning hedges or kneeling over a valve box is a faux pas, embarrassing because it bluntly reveals the racial and class relations embedded in landscape architecture, and shows us just how manufactured and manicured our gardens have to be to look the way we want them to.

If I saw anyone at home while working, they were mostly mothers and children. I began to notice overlaps in the rhythms of landscape maintenance and domestic labor. Both were unseen forms of housekeeping, the big difference being that I was getting paid, and these mothers weren’t. Though I’d like to think they were! The concept of wages for and against housework has been central to Marxist feminist organizing around domestic labor. Today, material gains have been made worldwide for wives, mothers, and the childcare workforce. Compensation, however, is only part of the picture. Perhaps our desire to keep maintenance and care work in the background is a problem in itself and not one that money alone can solve.

Perceptions of care work often oscillate between being selflessly noble or a costly burden, and neither can sustain a politics of care. For example, despite Affordable Care Act (ACA) reforms, American healthcare is frequently unable to provide long-term care to disabled and elderly populations. When patients can no longer stay in the hospital, family assistance is usually sought out. What if employers and the state cared for carers and helped workers orient their commitments around caregiving, instead of leaving them to find time off the clock to do so? As Professor Shannon Mattern notes, “If we apply ‘care’ as a framework of analysis and imagination for the practitioners who design our material world, the policymakers who regulate it, and the citizens who participate in its democratic platforms, we might succeed in building more equitable and responsible systems.” 6

Invisibility and the Tourist Gaze
As “post”-pandemic tourism in Hawai’i intensifies, and our state makes proclamations about economic recovery while placing extraordinary pressure on Native Hawaiians and local residents (many of whom work in the tourist industry), I find myself pessimistic. Why must we choose between the equally undesirable prospects of economic austerity vs. perpetuating an extractive industry? Whatever we gain in awareness and publicity from tourists who spend their money here and enjoy a Native garden at a resort, or read an interpretive sign in a landscape about our history and culture, we undoubtedly lose more in the strain they place on our natural resources and degrading public infrastructure. There is a colonial violence inherent in the tourist gaze, which demands our hyper-visibility. We are made to offer others a paradise that doesn’t square with what we need for survival. Could we refuse this gaze?

Commenting on the imperial history of photography, Teju Cole proposes we adopt as a human right “the right to remain obscure, unseen, and dark.” 7 I’d say the same applies to landscapes. While uneven access to natural spaces is a pressing issue, accessibility isn’t always appropriate, and I oppose claims on the grounds of identity that we are automatically entitled to any space, or that any space should be made “public.” If I appear to contradict what I’ve previously written about access, it’s because our colloquial idea of what is public is already contradictory and tied to market forces, encompassing anything from a city park, to a conservation easement, to a sports facility that is free to use but nevertheless privately owned. All these spaces, by design, select their public and exclude others. From homeless sweeps to prohibitions on large gatherings (often racially coded), to the dispossession of Native land to build national parks, arguably America’s greatest ideal of public nature, this selection occurs everywhere. As designers, we are complicit in this selection process. We must work to build community control over it to create a public realm that is both equitable and oriented towards environmental justice. Accessibility and visibility are not binary states, but movable thresholds that cannot and should not include everyone at all times.

Invisibility and the Carceral State
When the artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi began his voluntary internment at Arizona’s Poston Internment Camp in May 1942,8 the first thing he remarked upon was the “eye-burning dust.” The heat, the haze on the horizon, and the dust dramatized his unclear mental state. In an unpublished article for Reader’s Digest,9 he wonders why he came in the first place. Noguchi felt sympathetic to the American-born Japanese, but also questioned where this sympathy arose from. His experiences as a cosmopolitan artist during the interwar period were vastly different from those of the internees. Was it merely because they looked the same as him? If Noguchi hoped to turn in an uplifting article about finding a sense of ethnic belonging and a shared Japanese identity at Poston, he found the opposite. The Nisei internees were “pathetically American” and knew nothing of their heritage, which they regarded as peculiar. But here they were, refused by their country, alienated from history and nationality on both sides of an ocean. What Noguchi found was a voiding of identity, a dislocation so profound it was indescribable.

The life of anyone incarcerated is an invisible one. Incarceration segregates people from society, but also settles them within it, inducting them into a prison system which justifies its presence through the systemic neglect of marginalized communities by the carceral state. Prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls this “organized abandonment.” 10 As Noguchi learned firsthand, no one wanted to deport the Japanese- Americans at Poston, only to eliminate them as a threat at the expense of their freedom. And yet, he details their intense yearning for a better world and how they articulated their hopes despite having very little. They gardened, took up the arts, and applied for furlough to learn new trades: “We have moments of elation only to be defeated by the poverty of our actual condition…We plan a city and look for nails.” 11

Before starting college, I remember having conversations with my parents about what to do if pulled over by the police. Don’t reach for the glovebox or start talking and signing unprompted—that can get you shot. You need to make yourself pliable, stop what you’re doing, calmly say you’re deaf, and hope the person behind that badge is listening. Police encounters are situations in which disclosure is life or death. Too often, deaf people, especially Black deaf people, are murdered or beaten because they cannot respond to what is often an impossible demand: to immediately follow orders without accommodations available. Training programs have made some officers better at communicating with deaf individuals, but cases of abuse still occur and outrage the Deaf community when they make the news. This is the flip side of the structural invisibility engendered by systems of prisons and policing. On the inside, there is no expectation of privacy, no chance to be individually invisible, whether in the cellblock or the temporary carceral space of the traffic stop. You must render everything about yourself visible and in the manner that is demanded.

Invisible Nails
Life as a disabled person requires navigating paradoxes and double binds. There is no monolithic experience of deafness, which creates problems when we have to measure up against legal and governmental standards of disability, and even the standards of our own Deaf communities. I am thinking of Noguchi’s invisible city, dreamt up by an invisible people somewhere in a desert that blinds its inhabitants. What would it take to build this place, where the body is free from normative standards, where disability can be as visible or invisible as it wants to be, where we don’t have to always prove our lives matter? Maybe we have to first think of invisibility as not one thing, but many, like nails in the structure of this city. We need to divest invisibility from the ways it causes harm, and refashion it to do many things and be many tools. Most people won’t know we’re doing this work and won’t think of it as anything unless they can see it. But we have to do it, have to feel it—for ourselves and each other.

Leveraging Design Through Leadership and Empathy

Humaira Tasneem playing cricket with teammates.

By Humaira Tasneem

As an athlete, I think of design as a team sport. The leader has to guide and inspire the team to win games, giving everybody their roles and responsibilities while supporting them to bring the best out of them. A team captain also prioritizes inclusivity because everyone has different experiences that need to be acknowledged. From my personal experience as the captain of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Women’s cricket team, I know that every athlete and designer has a drive that motivates them to keep going. Finding the correct problems can streamline the collaborative design process. Problem identification begins by asking the right questions, strategic thinking, tactical, technical, communication skills, creativity, and curiosity.

Why this comparison between sport and design? I learned important skills and lessons through playing cricket and basketball when I was 13 years old. When somebody made an error and got yelled at, I saw some teammates blaming the person by saying, “It’s your fault we lost that point.” This attitude was new to me; I only played for fun before, so I did not know we would be chastised for making mistakes. So when mistakes did happen, I put myself in my teammates’ shoes, asking, what if I messed up in a game? How would it feel? How would I feel if somebody was pointing fingers at me? This realization helped me from then on. I used it in all aspects of my life, especially when I became the captain. I always went the extra mile to put myself in my teammates’ shoes if they were late to practice, messed up a team strategy on the field, or didn’t show enough energy.

As designers, athletes, leaders, and people, as human beings with souls, we have to constantly empathize and understand the importance of designing with the people, not for the people. Regardless of age, gender, class, race, ethnic group, abilities, all leaders should be empathetic. Imagine a world where empathy was a part of the job description for leadership roles. How can one lead, serve, and strategize for others when they cannot imagine themselves in the shoes of the people they serve? How do you solve a problem from the perspectives of the people experiencing it and not from convenience?

Where was the focus on diversity and inclusion before the civic unrest of 2020? More companies are adding equity departments, and hiring practices only drastically changed after the civic unrest in 2020. Have you wondered why inclusion is being talked about so aggressively these days? Have you looked around you? In your team? Have you considered including people from the global majority in solving problems? The BIPOC representation in a design team offers different experiences, perspectives, and approaches for the products and services of tomorrow. BIPOC designers can help creative teams become more empathetic and human-centered designers. A global and diverse perspective assists in discovering various viewpoints and pain points that otherwise take triple the time to unearth. As a person who has pushed to understand different cultures and surround myself around people that make me grow, I can vouch that my brain is more creative than a person who has only been around people who look and talk like them. I am more focused on solving problems that are causing harm to communities that are not rich and capitalistic. I’m a Hijabi Muslim woman, a person of color, a designer, an international cricketer, an artist, and a millennial dedicated to serving a purpose within my communities. I want to offer principles of accessibility and equity in my work and push myself to design with the people I am helping.

The core of any design solution is diversity in the design team. Diversity does not only mean race or ethnicity, even though race is a major part of that word. Diversity in terms of accessibility, in terms of languages, in terms of experiences, in terms of personality. If you want real criticism and good feedback that helps you grow as a designer and person, you need to be intentional about including people on your team who are not similar to you as a person. It’s important that we make intentional decisions or even go out of our way to include people that do not define the general population. If people different from you can’t be found in your community, use a virtual network! The pandemic helped us understand that connecting online is an excellent way to communicate with others. My dad would always say, “Whatever it is, don’t make excuses.” and my mom would always say, “If you don’t do it today, then when?” These things did not resonate well with me when I was a kid but these are my life mottos as an adult. And to amplify this topic of “using time efficiently” further, my husband says “You can’t say there’s no time. You need to make time.”

We need more BIPOC designers on teams and as leaders to represent the various cultures and races forgotten in the design process. Our beliefs should emphasize the importance of inclusion, while appreciating and utilizing our differences. Ideally, future products and services should be designed by a team representing the global majority to understand a problem from all points of view. This way, the design will be usable by various BIPOC and marginalized groups.

I saw this theory come to life when I chose to do my master’s topic on inclusion in a predominantly White city: Portland, Oregon. Let me backtrack a little. I completed my Master’s in Design Systems in Portland and my thesis work involved creating an online community platform to connect individuals of color, so we can find each other in a densely White city. Oregon is one of the few states known for its Black exclusion laws and its liberal nature. The city gave me firsthand experience of the alienation that one can feel if they are not of the same color as the majority in a space. I understood the significance of risk-taking and how such a simple topic of risk is not a privilege for everyone. Cultures and ethnicities, income, race, gender, and access divide people so that they can or can not take risks. I realized that the risks I was taking were not only risks, but they also represented me as a Hijabi Muslim and as a Brown person in the classroom. Suddenly, I was not just a student, I was more. I was a hijabi-Muslim-Brown-international-studentdesigner- athlete. I realized how much work I had to do to include my experiences in classroom conversations. My experiences in life influence the direction of classroom conversations, design work, my school work, and my thesis in a surprising and unique way. I noticed that some experiences, like feeling alienated in Portland, were in my unconscious mind and needed to be acknowledged in order to understand the problem that affects many like me and create a solution that also affects many like me.

Having more BIPOC representation would have certainly helped me feel comfortable and less drained of my emotional labor. I felt like this has been an ongoing story in my life—feeling the odd one out. When I was in the UAE women’s cricket team, I was also the only hijabi Muslim and felt like I needed to put in more effort and talk about myself in a hijab. This wasn’t about discrimination, this was about me feeling the odd one out and expecting myself to put in the extra effort to explain myself. There was already the added frustration of doing extra work to express different cultures because I am an Indian, born and raised in the UAE. Additionally, tiresome interactions with White men who assume they know more than me have taken their toll. On top of this, I was frustrated being in an educational setting where risks are a part of learning. If I said or did something wrong, I would embarrass my people and get judged for my actions. And “my people,” my Muslim family of this world, my “ummah” have already been through a lot historically. The emotional drain of frequently putting in more effort than anyone in my class because I was scared that any mistake could only harm my image and the image of my people. I realized then how much of an effect it would have made if my team members reflected some of my cultural identities. So, as a BIPOC leader, I intentionally decided to increase the representation of people of the global majority on my teams to grow creatively and take previously unimaginable risks.

I am passionate about leveraging my skills to create more resources for BIPOC people. As an outsider, I spent the last year uniquely positioned to understand the problem because I experienced being hyper visible, isolated, othered, and alienated in the city. In addition, the people I interviewed opened up to me because they recognized that I have similar experiences, if not the same. Who will design better for marginalized groups if not oppressed people? Who would I design for then, if not the very people who brought me here? It is of utmost importance to me to constantly push the boundaries when it comes to including BIPOC people in my team, my designs, my surroundings, and my work. I try my best to take responsibility as a leader of my soul, be empathetic, and learn on the way. The last iteration of my thesis is an online community platform designed to provide support to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color residents by building community and connections in the online world. Representation in a design team helps discover innovative viewpoints and historically ignored pain points more efficiently than majority-White teams. It is important always to do the extra work of questioning and accounting for the forgotten ones in the capitalistic design process. How are the people in your team feeling about risks? Have you had a conversation about taking risks regarding the type of life a person has lived?

Let’s come back to the real question: How are you pushing yourself to ensure that the people around you are not the same as you? Are people welcome? This isn’t to say that only design leaders are responsible for creating inclusive and diverse spaces. It is the responsibility of every individual to work towards creating an equitable relationship with their designs. Ensuring others that “I am not racist, my best friend is Black,” is an unhelpful defense mechanism. “I collaborated with my best friend who is Black and has a better perspective when it comes to designing for a target audience of Black-identifying individuals,” is a more equitable approach to design collaboration.

Design is similar to a team sport. Let’s take cricket as an example. There are batters and bowlers with diverse skill sets on the team. Everyone has different roles and responsibilities in the game and we all have to collaborate in order to win. We come up with strategies and plan A, B, C so that we are preconceive and have a plan for any challenge that arises. The more conflicts there are, the more difficult it is to create an environment of a winning team where everyone feels like they contributed. If we put this same situation in a design team, a team will have varying degrees of skill sets and professions. But if most of them are batters, you have one bowler and maybe a few specialized fielders, that one bowler has a lot of pressure and labor to succeed and those few specialized fielders will be running the team. It is important for a design thinker to thoroughly understand what motivates and frustrates the people they are designing for. As a result, the final design should be accessible and scalable, accommodating users with disabilities while also accounting for various languages and cultures. It is of utmost importance that wherever I go in the future, whatever I turn out to be, I am constantly pushing the boundaries when it comes to the inclusion of BIPOC people on my team, my designs, my surroundings, and my work.

BIPOC identifying designers will not merely work on a design or a product, but we will work on changing the foundation that we rest on—a system that was never designed for us to succeed. With more of us in design and even more in leadership positions in design, we can begin to create equitable systems, which I know will lead to a better tomorrow.

Ultimately, design leaders set the tone for how the next generation of designers conduct themselves as leaders at work and as individuals. Unfortunately, under capitalism, it is possible to lead without morals. It is an uphill challenge to put empathy and ethics first. However, it is a challenge that all leaders must commit.

Design is similar to sport in that they both help us express ourselves freely and push us to converse with people from around the globe. Through these experiences, we meet people from various cultures, ethnicities, and races who speak different languages, behave differently when they win or lose, and show respect in various ways. So how are we as leaders pushing our teams and the people around us every day to make this world an equitable place?

Mindful Feedback

Artwork By Catherine Clarke

By Catherine Clarke, Graphic and Information Design Graduate

Content warning: Mental health, mental illness, sexual assault, sexual harassment

I’m a quiet and gentle person, and I have a lot of joy in my life. My art and design work is best described as happy: bright reds and yellows, bubbly shapes, and smiling characters. It may seem like positivity comes easily for me, but I have to work extremely hard to enjoy life. I’ve been struggling with post-traumatic stress for years, along with depression and anxiety, and surviving each day can feel like a full-time job. It’s difficult to escape a victim mindset, especially after enduring sexual assault as a girl.

Going to design school was a big risk because there is so much room for subjectivity and criticism. I have been lucky enough to participate in many design studio courses, and subsequently, countless critiques. Critique is one of the hardest parts of university for me. Putting my hard work on display and asking for feedback makes me feel extremely vulnerable and can trigger flashbacks and panic. I identify as a highly sensitive person. This realization has strengthened my focus on careful and empathetic design paired with mindful feedback.

Trauma manifests differently for everyone. For me, it was months of denial and shame, then extreme sadness and isolation. After surviving a pattern of sexual abuse, I had to un-learn many coping behaviors I had developed out of desperation. I had a habit of lying and withholding information from my friends and family. I thought that I was protecting myself, but I was only making things more complicated. I also fed into negative self-talk and started engaging in self-harm. Whenever I made a mistake, I was incredibly hard on myself. I had low selfesteem, so any small error made me feel even worse about myself. I would punish myself frequently, and I believed that it was what I deserved. The combination of denial and self-harm translated into perfectionism. I put so much effort into everything I did to try and avoid criticism and the subsequent self-harm. I am proud of my hardworking attitude and the progress I observed, but it set me up for disappointment. Even if I had given a project everything I had, emotionally, physically, intellectually, I would inevitably get criticism. But I saw receiving feedback as failing because I thought that if I worked hard enough, there would be no need for feedback.

A critique is a feedback session on a piece of artwork, in progress or completed. This process is crucial for any project because it helps expand existing ideas and provides the presenter with honest reactions and input. The feedback process can look different depending on the project’s stage and industry. In the early stages of a project, it’s often helpful to conduct empathy interviews: a preliminary, open-ended conversation with potential users. These interviews can reveal the user’s behaviors, wants, and needs and guide a designer to create a project that best suits potential clients. Once a prototype is developed based on these conversations, the designer might do user testing and ask people to try the product or service to observe their pain points. The designer would then make changes to the prototype and create a high-fidelity product based on user testing. In design school, this is typically the point where a formal critique would take place. Each student displays their hard work, and the class discusses every project, one by one. I have a lot of anxiety about this final step. I enjoy user research, interviews, and iterating because it’s usually informal and ever evolving. Still, the final critique feels physically and emotionally exhausting. Critique requires vulnerability, patience, focus, and courage, and there’s also the added pressure of getting graded or disappointing a client. People can also be harsh! Design is very subjective and personal, and sometimes a concept doesn’t make sense to everyone. I can remember a particularly tough critique when I was in my first year of university. I had spent weeks in the studio and the woodshop developing a fully fleshed-out toy with packaging and branding. I had semi-permanent goggle marks on my face and a wardrobe covered in paint and sawdust, and there were several studio sessions where I broke down in tears from the exhaustion and frustration of learning new tools. I was so invested in this project and felt proud of my outcome. During critiques, my professor wasn’t as enthusiastic. He seemed to like my project, but he bluntly pointed out minute execution flaws and areas where I ran out of time. He asked me what I would change if I had another week, and, defeated, I said I would redo the entire project. He said that wasn’t necessary and then made an insensitive joke about how I looked angry, which embarrassed me in front of my classmates. I said I wasn’t angry, and he dismissed it, saying that my expression was impossible to read. I felt mortified. I had worked so hard to create this project, and I didn’t know how to process the harsh feedback. My blank stare must have translated to anger, and my professor thought it was appropriate to provoke me.

Artwork By Catherine Clarke

I can understand my professor’s intentions during this critique. He wanted to help me improve my project, and he was sure to point out underdeveloped areas. It’s logical to expose flaws so that the designer knows what to fix. The good parts of the project don’t need to change, so why bother mentioning them?

I still struggle with this line of thinking. While my professor had good intentions, he also triggered me. A trigger is a detail, like a sight or a phrase, related to a traumatic event that may turn up in daily life and cause a fear response. I was triggered when my professor scrutinized my project and joked about my blank expression. While I knew I was technically safe, my body began to react to potential danger. First, I had received some harsh feedback and was struggling to separate feedback and failure. Second, this critique followed a similar pattern to my sexual abuse. I can remember being criticized and broken down by abusers and then being mocked for my angry or upset reaction. I felt a similar kind of stress during the critique as I did when experiencing a traumatic event.

Critique is a two-way process, and poor communication and tone can turn genuine and honest feedback into terrible, triggering feedback. During my time at partial hospitalization programs, I learned about the GIVE method; an interpersonal effectiveness concept taught in dialectal behavioral therapy (DBT). GIVE is an acronym for Gentle, Interested, Validate, and Easy-going, and it helps people create and maintain healthy relationships. In a critique setting, GIVE is an excellent guideline for providing feedback. This framework is gentle and friendly, which works to minimize the possibilities of triggering someone. It also emphasizes the validation of hard work and effort and positively reinforces good choices. There is still room for suggestions and improvements, but the tone of the conversation is never confrontational or offensive. Maintaining GIVE qualities in a conversation is not easy; it requires a lot of energy and dedication. However, it’s always better to try GIVE skills imperfectly than not to use them at all. Besides, practicing these skills will only make them easier! In the event of triggering a student or classmate, it’s best to apologize first and then use GIVE skills again. Validate their emotions and take accountability for your words. We can’t always know what might trigger someone. Some people can be triggered by certain smells, weather, songs, and more. Triggers can be unavoidable, but mindfully incorporating GIVE skills in the classroom can minimize the effects. If my professor did practice GIVE skills from the previous example, he may have adjusted his tone to be more soft and friendly, made eye contact, and given me time to explain my process. It is still possible to give critique and point out flaws while maintaining a positive and supportive demeanor. I would have welcomed any feedback he had for me because I would feel safe.

Using GIVE skills can also help prevent a culture of shame. When trying to create a mindful and inclusive critique, it’s important to be cautious with harsh words, sarcasm, and tough love. The problem with these communication styles is that it often makes the recipient feel ashamed. Shame is a complicated emotion that actually can result in a fear response, similar to fight-or-flight. Physiologically, shame is connected to the brain’s limbic system, which is responsible for automatic responses and survival. When the limbic system is activated, the body is flooded with the stress hormone cortisol. Energy is directed towards defending and protecting yourself, just like in a physical attack. This also means that energy is not being utilized in the brain’s learning centers, such as the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for logical thinking. The only goal of a critique should be to learn and improve, but it is nearly physically impossible to learn when experiencing shame. Being gentle and validating through the GIVE method is a good start to avoid shaming others, but we also have to be mindful of other things that might cause shame. As a highly sensitive person, many things can make me feel ashamed, like forgetting a small task, running late, even asking for help. Just like it is difficult to avoid certain triggers, creating a space without shame can be challenging because everyone experiences it a little differently. Shame may be inevitable, but a mindful critique environment can help minimize shame when learning is a priority.

Artwork By Catherine Clarke

The recipient of a critique can also engage in mindful behavior to alleviate automatic stress responses and manage potential triggers. It’s important to accept that you cannot control the tone of a critique, and sometimes people will not use GIVE skills. While this scenario is not ideal, difficult critiques still happen, and it’s important to plan accordingly. I like to cope ahead. This technique helps calm future stressors by priming your body and mind for a challenging interaction. For example, suppose I’m anticipating a difficult critique. In that case, I need to use all the coping skills I can ahead of time to prepare myself for potential triggers. This can start a few nights before a critique with a coping skill called Reducing Vulnerabilities.

Vulnerabilities are simple things like sleep, nutrition, hydration, and movement that create a strong foundation for productivity and learning. When I only get six hours of sleep, for example, I am chipping away at that strong foundation and am more likely to fall into a crisis situation. Prioritizing basic self-care ensures a healthy state of mind. In addition, it promotes active listening, learning, and action steps when facing a critique. When I had that challenging critique, I stayed up too late in the studio, neglected my laundry, forgot to drink enough water, and deprived myself of relaxation time. I will not excuse my professor’s triggering remarks, but if I had reduced my vulnerabilities by getting more sleep and focusing on selfcare, I might have been able to accept the harsh feedback a little easier and could have interpreted the comments differently. I still might have been triggered, but at least I would have been in good health and in better shape to recover.

Another way to “cope ahead” is to actively practice a growth mindset. As defined by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, an influential researcher in this area, people with a growth mindset can develop their talents through hard work, good strategies, and input from others. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, which describes someone who believes their skills are innate and cannot improve in a meaningful way. People with fixed mindsets avoid failure and feedback. Instead, their success depends only on the confirmation and validation of their existing skills. I believe most people have a combination of both mindsets, as these examples are the two extremes of the spectrum. However, it is important to lean towards a growth mindset in any critique setting. Having a fixed mindset during a critique is incredibly painful since any negative comments or suggestions can evoke a sense of failure and shame.

Practicing a growth mindset can be difficult, especially for people dealing with trauma. Enduring traumatic events heightened my protective tendencies, manifesting in hyper-vigilance and paranoia. Survival and self-preservation became my priority, so I had a hard time understanding that being vulnerable and exposing my weaknesses would make me a better student. I found that practicing a growth mindset in small ways during my day helped me build up a healthy mindset for critique. I like to challenge myself when I begin to feel those protective boundaries creeping up in safe situations. For example, I’ll cook a new dish and allow myself to feel vulnerable by asking my family how it tastes. I’ll actively listen to their comments and keep reminding myself this will make me better. They love me, I am safe, and it is a privilege to hear their feedback. Sometimes I need to repeat this mantra every few seconds. A growth mindset does not come easily for me, so it helps to remind myself why I’m choosing to be vulnerable.

Artwork By Catherine Clarke

There are also ways I like to cope during a critique. In Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), self-soothing through your five senses can help in a tense situation. This technique allows me to take a break from my surroundings, connect with my body, and focus on something comforting. I enjoy using taste, as appropriate. A small snack is comforting to have, such as a piece of fruit or some dark chocolate. If eating is not permitted, drinking tea, coffee, kombucha, or water is another great option. I also like using touch by wearing soft, comfortable clothing or bringing a small item, like a smooth rock or stress ball, to hold.

I also try to turn off my emotional mind and act as an observer during a critique. I take a lot of notes to process the feedback later, in a comfortable and private place.

During critique, I am simply writing a transcript for my future self, which takes the pressure off my present, more vulnerable self. Once the critique is over, I still have a lot of work to do. I have to process and analyze pages of notes and diagrams and decide which changes I want to implement, which can be difficult, but it’s much better than facing a crisis during critique. This technique helps me use my wise mind. In DBT, the wise mind is the intersection of the reasonable mind and the emotional mind. It helps us operate with balance and intuition. During the critique, I try to only use my reasonable mind by processing logical observations and facts. This helps me detach from the situation and allows me to feel safe and protected during a vulnerable experience. After the critique, I allow my emotional mind to analyze the information in a safe and comfortable space to decide which comments I agree with and the changes that I can make while staying authentic to my vision. I can also give myself space to feel proud, angry, frustrated, or inspired. Finally, my wise mind takes over and helps me balance the emotional connection to my project and the logical feedback from the critique. As a result, I am also able to create reasonable action steps and improve my project.

It’s vulnerable to offer your hard work to feedback. If you love what you do, it makes sense to take feedback personally. Dealing with mental health issues only makes criticism harder to process, but there are ways to make the design space more safe and inclusive.

We need to gently guide students and employees through the critique experience using mindfulness and evidence-based communication techniques. We need to validate good ideas. We need to be sensitive to possible triggers. And we need to remind ourselves that mindful feedback is not easy and that it takes a lot of practice to communicate effectively. My identity as someone with post-traumatic stress has helped me prioritize healthy communication and mindful design. I believe we can make design feedback safe for everyone.

Triggers for PTSD
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/ syc-20355967
Dr. Shapiro TEDx Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeblJdB2-Vo DBT
Wise Mind
https://www.mindfulnessmuse.com/dialecticalbehavior- therapy/what-is-wise-mind

Love Sourcing: Finding Sustainability Through The Intangible

Bakari Akinyele with indigo dyed textile art pieces.

By Bakari Akinyele, Strategist and Artist

One year ago, my mother gifted me a vibrant, orange, and brown, hand-dyed batik cloth made by her friend, a 5th generation Ghanaian master batik dyer. The cloth travels with me everywhere. I use it to adorn my living space, and occasionally I wear it myself. A good life includes living with beautifully crafted objects in my family tradition. The value each object holds is augmented by the intangible experiences and memories attached to them. It is just as art critic Soetsu Yanagi describes in The Beauty of Everyday Things, “The importance of living with beautiful everyday objects is to experience a sense of content.” Though I am a young Black man living in the height of a climate crisis so threatening, so urgent, and so ugly, I have a right to live a life with beautiful things. Responsibility for the climate crisis is frequently placed on the shoulders of the everyday person. Communities are encouraged to use less, recycle more, and minimize their carbon footprint. While these are good suggestions, it is existing ways of design thinking that need to be critiqued. The climate crisis has been caused by design that supports the relentless exploitation of our environmental, human, and material resources. To me, design should be the process of discovery, healing, adding value, and developing relationships.

My understanding of design theory and material culture comes from everyday people. My grandfather learned to create his own tools. When my favorite childhood blanket became too small for my body, my mother repurposed it into a pillow. My father taught me how to build my own clubhouse from discarded plywood. When one of my favorite shirts suffered a spaghetti stain, I overdyed it to give it new life.

My multidisciplinary education in design allows for a synthesis of personal experiences into a design technique and aesthetic that supports my vision of design in the postclimate crisis future. A large part of my design process is deconstructing imagined objects and processes, to determine how to use energy and materials effectively. When designing an object or process, I ask myself what is necessary for the object or process to be relevant, valuable, and useful in the postclimate crisis future? There are thousands of physical materials available to create with, but there is only one material that is truly sustainable. Love. A love composed of intention, care, compassion, and unbounded empathy towards our environment and the users we serve with our designs.

One day in undergrad, I was sitting in my room trying to figure out what I would do with my life post-graduation. I gazed at the batik dyed cloth my mother had given me and realized I was looking at the answer. If I mastered a specific step in the process of making textiles and applied an eco-conscious, love-forward approach, I would be able to traverse a multitude of industries from furniture design and automotive design to fashion.

I had the opportunity to visit a traditional textile artisan fair in Mexico City, where I connected with talented designers, artisans, and artists from around the globe. Getting to know them and their practices, I was inspired to research the integration of traditional crafts and contemporary design. The more I researched, the more I became aware of the accessibility barriers to learning about design.

Shortly after graduating from Howard University with a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy in 2020 (at the start of the pandemic), I moved to Seoul, South Korea, as a Henry Luce Scholar. I spent ten months there researching design and traditional crafts practices in South Korea. I was able to observe the lineage and transformation of crafts in that environment. I had come to Korea with the intent of focusing on how craft objects, particularly soft goods like fabrics, clothes, and automobile interiors, were designed and made. My goal was to learn traditional and contemporary methods of designing that promote healing the self and the environment. I spent much of my time studying traditional Korean natural indigo dying and traditional South Korean embroidery techniques. As an artist and designer, getting the holders of my handiwork to truly appreciate the object beyond materiality is difficult. Surveying traditional crafts that had lasted hundreds of years to determine what would sustain this appreciation seemed like the obvious answer.

Bakari Akinyele, Capoieristas (1825). Movement Series. Cotton canvas dyed with natural indigo, 2021.

But great design still needs to meet changing modern needs. I conducted a market analysis of South Korean fashion trends and styles. Then, based on my research, I designed a modern version of a men’s Hanbok, a traditional South Korean garment for daily use. The garment is suitable for travel and reflects my practice as a pilgrim of design, traversing a globalized world. I taught myself how to make the techpack, 3D patterns, and material sourcing, and I carried out the remainder of the project to finish garments with the help of a local seamster.

Value lies in the practice. Materials aren’t inherently valuable; it is our relationship to the material that gives it a perceived value. Popular American media exposed me to the suggestion that fulfillment came from amassing as much as one could stuff into their home, whether it held sentimental value or not. This practice is inherently harmful to the environment and our perceptions of use and ownership.

Yanagi believed that the appeal of using a beautiful object is that you come to love the practice of engaging with the object. For example, tea ceremonies in South Korea and Japan have become synonymous with the vessels in which tea is consumed. Materiality holds less importance when something intangible is attached to the material, such as emotions and memory. These intangible materials are critical components of my design practice and sustainability research. After reading All About Love, in which bell hooks describes her journey to understanding love, I was reminded that love is practiced in all aspects of life, including design. While material qualities and their impact on the earth are important considerations, deep feelings—love in particular—are the only things that are positively sustainable.

Then how do we communicate love through design and creation? Master artisans show us that slow making, attention to detail, and spending time with the object seems to be the answer. Sew to make sure every thread is in its proper place. Unbind as opposed to cut to preserve as much material as possible. This attention to detail communicates that the maker loved the process. As an artist and designer concerned with communicating love, I hope that the person who holds what I make explores all of the details and loves it just as much if not more than me.

The mud-dyed cloth that I have loved since my mother gifted it will eventually become an heirloom once I give it to my children or grandchildren. I imagine wrapping them tightly in the cloth while recounting its numerous stories. Alternatively, I’ll use it to set the dining room table for special occasions. Regardless, the cloth becomes a medium by which I can communicate my love for them. They’ll sit and scan the numerous lines and patterns and etch the texture and smell into their memory. When I design an object, I try to imagine a future in which the object will still have use. The more uses an object has for expressing love in the future, the more valuable my designs become. Therefore, when I design, I reference the heirloom objects around me; as an example, an object that has survived up to the present moment and will continue to survive with care.

Heirloom objects help ethnoarchaeologists describe the values of previous societies. In addition, the techniques applied to the object teach them about the technology available, materials available, and even the maker’s values. The way heirloom objects are treated displays love as a value. Various mending techniques such as overdyeing or quilting can give a precious but damaged textile new life. Creators must design the object to allow the forthcoming generations to continue mending, caring for, and loving the object through their practices.

The mending portion is a key component to the sustainability and insurance that the object survives into the post-climate crisis future. Some materials can survive several lifetimes. However, their near indestructibility creates environmental challenges, including the disposal of hazardous waste or the slow release of microplastics into the air and water. Well-designed objects should reflect the needs and desires of the users, time, and environment. Materials that aren’t biodegradable and survive old ideologies require a complex system for recycling that would use more energy than natural cycles provide. Mending translates the love of the current user and allows for greater adaptability and change. Even if the original designer and user are absent, these marks and stitches serve to communicate how the object can continue to be used. Even if this is not possible, the physical material choice should allow it to decompose safely.

The childhood blanket, now pillow, was the first textile that I lived with consistently. It served as my mediator for sleep until I reached adolescence. Even then, I still held the memory of the blanket. When its original purpose no longer served me, my mother manipulated it to suit a new need. This example of adaptable design, mending, and love in practice makes room for the object to continue to have use in the future. Even if the blanket doesn’t make it to another user, the natural and chemical-free materials make it clean enough to be safely recycled.

My goal is to create an object that communicates my love for design. Furthermore, I want this love to transfer through the object to the user. The presence and awareness of love encourage the user to engage with my designs continuously through a practice, ritual, or ceremony, developing a relationship between user and object and supporting the continued use of the object. The moment the object breaks or becomes dysfunctional, mending occurs and continues to strengthen the relationship and intention that will carry the object into the future.

My design journey has had unexpected lessons. I realized that part of my design practice, which involves dyeing and embroidery, is the adornment of an already constructed object. Dyeing breathes new or renewed life and color into the textile. Embroidery, with the right techniques, has fortifying and mending capabilities. The cloth my mother gave me will get damaged at some point, but this presents the opportunity to further adorn, fortify, and charge it with love. The future of design thinking should incorporate love and practice at each step of the process—for example, ideation, prototyping, making, creating instructions, and sharing. Love is the greatest tool that designers have at their disposal to create lasting and effective change. Being a steward and designer of love will lead to well-made and beautiful objects that give users a sense of gratitude and happiness.

Public Art and Community

By Nicholas Xavier Fernandes, Artist, Community Organizer, and Designer

Let me tell you all about this final sociology assignment that I enjoyed. We were asked to write a paper. Though I do not enjoy writing, for once, I was excited to come up with a project proposal that followed the guide of Karl Marx’s Class Conflict Theory. I knew from the beginning that it would be about architecture and power dynamics. By this point, I was entrenched in architecture theory, so to pair this with the study of social problems meant that I could take a unique look at architecture and urbanism. The topic of my paper was “The integration of White supremacy into urban planning and design.” By recalling my classes of urbanism and sociology for my project, I was able to uncover and better understand many of the social dynamics that affect my communities. The last portion of my abstract was about the power of actions performed on the urban scale. A single planning decision can affect not only the city but also the region around it. However, not every resident experiences the same gains or losses of these calls. In America particularly, the planning of urban cores have been under the influence of ideas that uphold a utopian White American society.

I came from the most diverse town in Massachusetts. Even though it was not perfect, I love my hometown, and I have so much pride and gratitude for it. Randolph was filled with many faces and cultures and a true sense of diversity that I have yet to find anywhere else. As a young Black Queer kid, it was important for me to explore the extent of my identity and try new things. I was active in my community. I played sports in my town’s recreational leagues. In middle school, I played in the orchestral and jazz bands. In high school, I was a member of the dance team, captain of the cheer squad, varsity hurdle captain, and part of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) program that allowed me to “nerd out” over science. Along the way, I discovered my happiest place in art.

On the one hand, I would say that my interest in building blocks, drawing, and painting, paired with my affinity for dense and busy urban life, were seen as two separate things. However, it wasn’t until I had an art teacher that noticed my interest in drawing perspectives. She told me how perspectival drawings are used in architectural design communication. At that point, architecture was introduced to me as a possible occupation and one that would provide a comfortable livelihood. Before that moment, I hadn’t thought about architecture, nor had I known any architects in my community.

In my graduating high school class, only three students, including myself, showed interest in architecture as an occupation. Out of the three, two of us were Black. The other Black student was a friend of mine who couldn’t afford the cost of college and therefore did not attend. The moment she couldn’t afford school to study architecture was my first interaction with the complex topic of diversity in architecture.

As a young, first-generation, Black Queer male working towards becoming a future architect, I was overjoyed yet simultaneously worried about my circumstances. After my first trip to Wentworth [Institute of Technology], I realized that the jokes I heard in high school about being one of the “token” Black students were not far off from reality. There was a distinct moment when I realized that I was one of a few Black students at the new-student orientation. I felt disconnected and out of place. Not only was I a racial/ethnic minority, but I was a Queer one too.

Walking around orientation like a deer in headlights, I was visibly lost and alone. Finally, a bright and cheerful student came up and introduced himself to me. That was the start of an amazing camaraderie between Kai and me. Unbeknownst to me, he had identified me as a fellow Queer person. He wanted to connect as he was also searching for community. Unbeknownst to Kai, I was at an important pivotal moment in my life.

Kai allowed me to express myself in a way I hadn’t done before. It gave me a sense of community. I relied on him much like two members in the same house in the Ballroom Scene.* Kai became my study buddy, soundboard, and friend to hang out with and “kiki” with. He was great at networking, which taught this introvert how to come out of his shell. He also introduced me to other Queer students. It is important to mention that my dear friend Kai was a White Queer person; with that in mind, I was still looking to meet other Black and minority students. In walks Neil.

Neil was the NOMAS (National Organization of Minority Architecture Students) copresident. He introduced himself personally and invited me to my first NOMAS meeting. Let me explain why that was important to my collegiate experience. First off, he was a Queer Black male at a predominantly White institution—for that, I had to stan—but secondly, he also was about rallying together a community for support and progression.

It is very easy to call Neil my first mentor in architecture. We had very real conversations about life and experiences, fears and joys, and future ideas and past failures. He taught me a lot about how architecture has been inaccessible to Black and Brown people and introduced how larger city planning has intentionally created segregated cities. Finally, Neil encouraged me to run for NOMAS co-president to be his successor. He had seen some sort of potential in me that I have yet to discover in myself. From there, I filled out the ballot to run. Interestingly enough, together with my friend Kai, we served as co-presidents from 2018 to the end of 2021, when we graduated.

As one of my school’s NOMAS chapter copresidents, I took the same approach when recruiting new members Neil had once done with me. I wanted to be the catalyst for creating a culture and community of people deeply concerned with the prosperity of the ones around them. This became an integral point of our planning and event coordinating. We held many events with NOMAS that mainly focused on community building and had a firm foundation in professional development, knowledge dispersal, and diversity equity and inclusion.

 Fast-forwarding for a bit. At the time of my commencement, only six other Black students graduated with me. Some reasons why the retention rate was not higher for the students of color was because (1) many of them felt a lack of community, belonging and support, (2) they realized architecture was not for them or, (3) they could not afford the financial burden of college. I know several students who had professors tell them to quit architecture. Nonetheless, the remainder of the Black student population in my cohort became a close-knit group of friends. This microcommunity of young Black architects in training who understood each other’s identities and experiences allowed us to become the braces for one another under serious compressive and tensile force. This translated later to our accountability for one another to produce responsive projects that did more than fulfill the duties of the brief but also responded to the socio-cultural aspects of the predominantly non-White communities our projects were based in.

One topic we discussed in NOMAS a lot was “redlining”—the topic of a sociology paper—which is a part of planning and urban design history that deeply interests me. It is important to remember that America is a nation built for affluent White Anglo-Saxon Protestant citizens at the expense of Black, Indigenous, other non- White people, and poor White people. Many actions taken by the government just two generations ago, explicitly made dogwhistle policies to undermine developments of Black and Brown communities to uphold White supremacist and capitalistic desires. The practice of “redlining” was a coded measure to ensure that Black and Brown families could not invest in housing stock and intermix with White communities. It had evolved from blatant anti-Black ordinances like Baltimore’s in 1910.

Though a variety of constitutional violations made overt segregationist policies illegal, there was a strong determination to enact racist policies, which was eventually done covertly through proxy variables. “Redlining” achieved this through a grading system that ranked districts into four categories: Most Desirable (green), Still Desirable (blue), Declining (yellow), and Hazardous (red). The metrics of the system took into account amenities like access to public parks, tree-lined streets, supply of housing stock, and demographic composition, amongst others. These zones were used to determine if appraisal values of homes will remain stable and assess the risk in lending loans to borrowers and their respective neighborhoods. Though the redlining system is rooted in home loan lending, eventually, U.S. Federal Government agencies, local governments, and private entities used the practice to deny services directly or indirectly by upping prices.

During the height of the pandemic, everyone was forced to see the world outside of the tint of their rose-colored glasses. Faced with the gross racial inequities displayed in the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the rise in Asian American hate crimes, among other social issues, it forced America to engage in conversations and evaluate the ways White-supremacist-capitalism, and the subsequent inequality plays a part in the spaces people occupy, including the field of architecture. Historically, planning has been used to segregate and oppress communities. Reimagining the design and planning profession begins with acknowledging the influence of architects on communities, architects as individuals, and the need for historical honesty and inclusion within the field.

I wish to work in design on an urban scale in the future. I love cities with all the complexity of infrastructure, socio-cultural aspects, and the potential future of urbanization. As a designer, I can affect the culture and daily lives of people in cities. I know that my experiences are impacted by architecture. Now with my architectural lens, I have a responsibility to be impactful within architecture for those in my communities. I see my life up to now being similar to Tupac’s “The Rose That Grew from Concrete’’ which has and will add to the ecosystem of the concrete jungle. I think that my physical and social environment has shaped my direction in the field. I want to be a designer with intention. I want to focus my work on embracing and celebrating all people. I want to allow Black, Queer, and firstgeneration to see themselves in me. I want them to feel included and dispel antiquated notions of social stability and racial hierarchy from the urban context.

I dedicate this essay to all who have been underrepresented and looked over. To the Black designers whose names are unknown, the architects of pre-colonial Africa, and most importantly, those who have helped me reach this point in my life.

Public Art and Community

Game Inside the Game, 2019. Greg Lamarche’s wall painting at 200 Varick Street features his signature large-scale, vintage letterforms to create an abstract array of movement, tangled letters, and color. Presented by the Hudson Square BID. Photo credit: Kellie Rogers.

By Kendra Roberts, Co-Founder, Common Ground Arts

As curators, we think about art all the time: where we can put it (everywhere!), whose work is appropriate for a certain space, and most importantly, how we can design and craft a meaningful connection between that artwork and a specific community. We lean into questions like, what is the history of this place? Who lives, works, commutes, and visits this space? Who or what has been a primary focus and should that perspective be shifted? What current events or issues are directly tied to this place and its people? How can this artwork be seen and/or offer a new point of view? From there we research, identify, and recommend artists whose work seeks to answer many, if not all, of those questions, often asking their own. We see ourselves as matchmakers—matching artists’ voices to neighborhood, community, brand and/or company missions. We aim to design strategic programming around the placement of conscious, careful, community based public art experiences.

There is extensive research on the importance of art within our society. Therefore, we believe that public art is an integral part of our lives, and many of us are privileged to come into direct contact with a designed object or environment every day. Thoughtful, well-placed public art has the power to connect people and create a stronger sense of place when the work is intentionally inviting, engaging, and site-specific. Public art has the ability to bring people together by building understanding, dignity, and respect between diverse groups, and can be a powerful instrument of cultural identity expression, as well as a tool for protest and resistance. Public spaces offering safety, as well as a sense of belonging and ownership, establish more meaningful connections to each place and its people. Experiencing public art alone or collectively allows us to recognize our differences and appreciate our common humanity.

Keep chopping (dinosaur jr.), 2019. Brooklyn based artist Hellbent delivers a hand-painted mural on the façade of 131 Varick Street using his unique designs of interwoven color blocks and stenciled patterns drawn from classic fabric and wallpaper motifs. Presented by the Hudson Square BID. Photo credit: Kellie Rogers.

Today our society is reconsidering what histories have been amplified (or erased), and we are greatly inspired by projects facilitating strong connections to updated histories, place, and space. For instance, “Prototypes,” presented by Converge 45 in Portland, Oregon, an idea lab and exhibition, is centered around these two questions: “What is an appropriate monument or memorial for this time and place? What monument or memorial would you want in your neighborhood?” Over 30 Oregon artists responded with artworks, projects, ideas and proposals that engage in the national reckoning of our historical markers that compound racial injustice and social inequity. The responses are varied in their depth and detail, some humorous and others stark, in their defiance of both perceived and real threats to single bodies and whole communities. This is a powerful new model for public monuments, memorials, and public art installations that we believe can and should be adopted across the board. How will this model change the public art in our neighborhoods? What vantage points and lessons would be learned and shared? Why are the stories being told within these artworks important? What or who is being served?

Katie Merz, known for her use of personal pictograms and hieroglyphs drawn from stories, conversations, and research, creates two unique printed works for 161 Varick (Hudson Square Hieroglyphs, 2019) and 181 Varick (Varick Street Verticals, 2019) using playful pictograms that reflect both the history and the present moment of the neighborhood. Presented by the Hudson Square BID. Photo credit: Kellie Rogers.

Our purpose, as curators, is to transform urban environments through the power of art. How do we do this? By asking questions and listening intently to those answers, which oftentimes lead to more questions, we foster purposeful partnerships through dialogue, research, exploration, and collaboration. Informed by those discussions and findings, we design artist-driven ideas and solutions for each distinct space and place. One recent example of our work features a neighborhood business improvement district in Manhattan that historically was the center of the print and printmaking industry. It is now home to more modern creative companies and businesses. The selected artists for this project all use bold colors, text, and patterns in unique ways. Designed for specific buildings and public spaces along a busy street, these dynamic and colorful artworks invite daily inhabitants and visitors to explore the historic district now infused with new vitality.

Another example highlights a site-specific project for a corporate client seeking connection with the neighborhood through the artwork. The chosen artist was interested in the history of stained glass and identified a 19th-century craftsman known for his work throughout the area. She photographed several existing windows and created her own digital versions, using the original themes in different ways and adjusting the traditional color palette. These digitally printed vinyl artworks were installed along the large marble lobby walls and thus created the effect of illuminated stained-glass windows, providing a unique opportunity for viewers to experience the artwork at eye level. Both projects present artwork that connects directly to the modern history of each place. In this way, the artwork is not merely decorative, but anchors current community members and broader audiences to those historical moments.

Additionally, we are working on a public art project in a highly designed, newly created, multi-section urban park. The name of the park is significant as it is dedicated to a historical figure known as a champion for her work in the women’s rights movement and other social causes. With this in mind, we are determined to feature female artists in this inaugural outdoor exhibition. One of our tasks is to intentionally draw new visitors further into this new park during the evening hours in the winter months, which is not typically a time one wants to frolic in a park due to the cold. Since the environment will be dark early in the evenings during the bleakest part of the year, we look to a lighting designer to illuminate the artwork in a unique way that will engage audiences once the sun has set. Our research also involves identifying artists with experience in outdoor installations and who tell their individual or collective stories connected to nature. Many of us now appreciate our public green spaces in different ways, so we are engaging with artists who foster fresh perspectives and motivate new relationships between humans and nature. Several of these artists are intrigued with the notion that their work will degrade over time in direct opposition to the winter months leading into the spring season of renewal and rebirth.

Illumination, 2020. Julia Whitney Barnes created this multifaceted large-scale installation inspired by the 19th century stained glass artist Charles Booth. Presented by Arts Brookfield at One Pierrepont Plaza in Brooklyn. Photo credit: Sean Hemmerle.

Public art has saved us during this pandemic and offers vital benefits, including cultural awareness and identity, community and individual wellness, and greater productivity and freedom of movement. Art, in all of its forms, is essential for any civilized society. We are healthier when we are less isolated and more connected to one another. It is in this spirit that we collaborate and dream about new ways to facilitate how audiences can engage with and discover the public art around them. What are the stories being depicted through the public art in your community? What stories do you want to be told?