How can blackness construct America? How can we develop our visions, scenarios, expectations, counter-narratives, and strategic plans into a future? Join theorists Beth Coleman, dream hampton, and V. Mitch McEwen, and Kristina Kay Robinson for a conversation exploring these and other topics raised in the exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America and the free online course Reimagining Blackness and Architecture. This conversation will be moderated by Ingrid LaFleur.

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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.

Join Black Lunch Table for a workshop on updating Wikipedia entries to share, explore, and tell stories about architecture, design, and Black cultural production. The edit-a-thon will include training for beginner Wikipedians, reference materials, and group and individual editing. While participants are invited to choose their own entries to edit, this edit-a-thon focuses on the architects, artists, and designers featured in the exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America and the related online course Reimagining Blackness and Architecture. This program will be facilitated by Eliza Myrie, Heather Hart, and Kearra Amaya Gopee and will include an introduction by the exhibition’s co-curator Mabel O. Wilson.

No prior Wikipedia editing experience is required. Participants will receive an email in advance of the program with instructions on how to create a Wikipedia account and other information to help you get started.

How is the kitchen a space of community and conflict, joy and survival? Join architect Germane Barnes, culinary historian Michael Twitty, and food scholar Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson for a conversation about ritual, labor, gender, and food through an exploration of the social space of the kitchen. This program takes place in conjunction with the exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America.

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This event is free, open to all, and takes place over Zoom meeting. 

Organized by the Museum of Modern Art as part of Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America.

BRC members Emanuel Admassu and Olalekan Jeyifous in conversation with Savonala Horne, moderated by David Naguib Pellow.

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Black Resilience

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A roundtable format lecture with each of the attending members of the Black Reconstruction Collective discussing the work that is currently on exhibit in MOMA’s Reconstructions: Blackness and Architecture in America.

At the Georgia Tech School of Architecture.

Organized by the Museum of Modern Art as part of Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America.

BRC members Sekou Cooke, J. Yolande Daniels, Felecia Davis, and Mario Gooden in conversation with Justin Garrett Moore and Peggy Shepard, moderated by Ifeoma Ebo.

Black Joy

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A roundtable format lecture with each of the attending members of the Black Reconstruction Collective discussing the work that is currently on exhibit in MOMA’s Reconstructions: Blackness and Architecture in America.

At Pennsylvania State University, College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School.