How have Black innovation and prosperity persisted in the face of economic exclusion and racial violence? How does innovation relate to self-determination for Black Americans? And what if safety and equity were guaranteed?
This conversation will take histories of Black invention and affluence as starting points to imagine new conditions for the present and future. It brings together architects, artists, and audience members around key questions raised in the exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. The discussion will be moderated by Tracie Hall, executive director of the American Library Association.
This event is free, open to all, and takes place over Zoom meeting. Register now.
Speakers:
Tracie Hall is the tenth Executive Director of the nearly 150 year-old, 56,000 member American Library Association. Deeply invested in the intersection of arts, literacy, and economic access, Hall is the recipient of numerous awards for her creative and community work, and is Founding Curator of the experimental arts space Rootwork Gallery in Chicago.
Walter Hood is the creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio and is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and Urban Design in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. As a landscape and public artist he creates urban spaces that resonate with and enrich the lives of current residents while also honoring communal histories.
Rick Lowe is an artist who champions people and communities through social practice-based art projects. In 1993 Lowe co-founded Project Row Houses, an arts and cultural community located in Houston’s significant, historical Third Ward – one of the city’s oldest African American neighborhoods. He uses creativity as a catalyst for change and for empowering people across economic, social and political realms.
Amanda Williams is a visual artist who trained as an architect. Her creative practice employs color as a way to draw attention to the complexities of race, place and value in cities. The landscapes in which she operates are the visual residue of the invisible policies and forces that have misshapen most inner cities. Williams’ installations, paintings and works on paper seek to inspire new ways of looking at the familiar and in the process, raise questions about the state of urban space and citizenship in America.
