[ Music ]
>> Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to AIGA Design for Good webcast series.
Today, we have a fifth episode that will focus on racial justice.
We entitle it "Design Justice Practice, Spreading Power".
Design justice practice, racial justice by design.
These are newish expressions that are provocative
and question the role design can play.
What role can design play when it's about busting bias, challenging stereotypes,
preventing the access to public services for underserved communities?
How do we break down the power dynamics?
How do we resist all these bias that are in society today?
This is sort of the questions that we will address today in the presence of two guests,
Antionette Carroll from St. Louis, and Bryan Lee, Junior in New Orleans.
Those two social impact designers and activists will really look at how to turn civic engagement
over its head with new methodologies, really questioning the role that designers can play,
and how they can empower the communities to truly become co-creators,
and not just recipients or beneficiaries of a design project.
So we will address in this webcast, you know, difficult conversations,
some of which have started at AIGA last summer on the footsteps of the police brutality,
and we had launched a town hall in July that tried to address some
of these questions of what designers can do.
But we'll go deeper also in not just questioning the role designers can have, but also,
what other methodologies, and what are the true tactics that can be used,
really pushing forward values of self-determination?
How do we empower community members to really have a role at the table
and really ensure a balance of representation and not just,
again, being fed the design Kool-Aid?
We will use concrete case studies.
And then we'll start with Bryan, who will present a series
of projects he has done in New Orleans.
Then we'll pass it on to Antionette.
Then we'll have a little Q and A with them.
And then we'll open the floor to questions.
But please be invited to send your questions along the way.
It's always nice to have them in storage.
And then we will take them to the other.
Again, this series is AIGA Design for Good webcast.
It's funded by the NEA, with additional funding from IBM.
And with no further ado, I pass it on to Bryan Lee, Jr., who is an architectural designer,
a justice advocate, and founder of Colloqate.
Welcome.
>> Welcome.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Good afternoon, everybody.
What I often talk about, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about design justice at large
and what that means, colloquial justice for a just city.
So colloquial design, meaning the informal, sophisticatedly informal use of design language
as a whole to speak to formal architectural or design precedent at large.
This really is a way for us to understand that culturally specific design plays an impact
in the ways in which we seek and attain outcomes in the built environment.
So a lot of this work, specifically in the architectural world, but I think more broadly
in the design world, stems from this opportunity that Whitney M. Young had back
in 1968, to speak to the AIA in Portland.
What he spoke about was the lack of dignity to which our profession provides to the people
in which it serves, the ways in which it overlooks and ignores the depravity
of the policies and procedures that are put in place in order to benefit one's self, all right?
And so the idea is really that if we are able to think about this specific sentence,
and I'll tap that real quick, he talks about the fact that our profession is not a profession
that has distinguished itself by its social and civic contributions.
It is most distinguished by our thunderous silence and complete irrelevance.
That's a huge statement.
It is a huge indictment of the work that an entire profession has done.
In the architecture profession proper, we're talking about health, safety and welfare.
And everybody knows what health is.
Everybody knows what safety is.
But the act of thinking about welfare, again, thinking about the positive emotional
and physical response in space is tremendously important.
And it allows us to think about the justice of the built environment in a very specific way.
And so this is where we have an opportunity, at least within our profession, to make progress.
And that's where we've sought within my organization to make that impact.
So really this is what we're talking about.
Culture and design have an evolutionary X. A culture and design are revolutionary acts.
These are the ways in which we seek hope in our lives, in our society, in our built environment.
We seek to learn from our past.
We seek to change our future for the better.
So evolutionary and revolutionary.
So I always often talk about the fact that architecture is the hardware to the software
of life's design itself of the built environment, whether that's graphics,
whether that's murals, whether that's architecture itself.
They all play a part.
It's the software to the built environment, or to the hardware that is our built environment.
And culture, when we think about the ways
in which culture manifests itself, it serves as the user interface.
It serves as a way in which we are able to engage the complexities
of both the built environment and our social existence, and understand them.
We're able to bring them into a space in which we can deliver an impactful understanding
of that space so we can navigate it, right?
So when we think about culture, we think about the ways that music touches our hearts,
or the ways in which a painting can reveal something about a true nature of self.
All of these things are a part of our expression.
And we use that to define so much.
So when I talk about design justice, it is fundamentally about eliminating the privilege
of power structures and design, creating a re-stratified profession
that really shifts the way in which the profession at large, design profession,
thinks about imbuing or embracing community.
And whatever that means relative to you, right?
You organize within your own community.
But restratifying the community allows you to bring more people into the process,
thusly providing more opportunities to break down the privilege and power structures
that that seek or put into place oppressive nature in our built environment, all right?
So that allows us to design and speak the language of the people we serve tenfold.
One of the things I really like to talk about with this is the fact that when we talk
about racism, when we talk about systemic oppression, we oftentimes conflate words.
And words have true value.
And that's one of the reasons I use the word colloquial,
because it is an informal use of formal language.
Racism oftentimes is conflated with bigotry and prejudice, but they are not the same thing.
A one-to-one interaction of bigotry or prejudice is not a long-term systemic, oppressive,
dehumanizing act based on somebody's skin color.
Racism is.
It is systemic.
It is the way in which we place policies and procedures that directly impact those
of a different color or kind just because of that consideration.
And so we have to think about the separation between bigotry and systemic racism.
Because nobody's-- there are people who are mad when we have immediate conflict around race.
But the biggest issue, the issues that you see people protesting about,
are not because somebody was called a name.
It's because somebody used a system of power to hold people down.
And so we have to think about the ways in which design does that,
whether that's allowing people access to being a part of the profession,
or utilizing that profession as a means to continue that oppression
into the future or into public space.
So that's huge.
And so when we think about that, we have to think about it
through those three lenses, right?
So what are the policies, procedures, practices?
And I usually add one more.
What are the projects that come out of that?
And we think about the policies.
Policies and procedures go hand-in-hand.
They are the ideal condition to which we try to put things into the world.
Procedures are the ways in which we just try to manage those policies,
we try to functionally put those policies into play.
Now, the translation between policy and procedure can be an infinite myriad.
But that's where we find conflict.
That's where, you know, a policy about, you know, loitering turns into something else.
And I'll talk a little bit about that in a little bit.
But where we have the opportunity to make change as a practice, as a profession,
is to think about the ways in which those policies
and procedures can be impacted through our work.
How can we advocate?
How can we organize?
How can we do projects that directly impact the ways in which policies
and procedures are put into play?
There lies our direct ability to make change.
So I want to talk specifically about this.
And then I'll push through a few subsequent charges that talk
about this in a little bit more detail.
But a few years back, Alton Sterling, I guess this is 2015 now, Alton Sterling was shot
and murdered out in front of a corner store, which he had been selling CDs
in front of for better knows of 10 years.
People knew him as a CD man.
People knew this man.
And this space was a safe space.
And he was murdered.
Eric Garner, murdered in front of a corner store in New York, selling cigarettes.
Again, these spaces oftentimes in communities are safe spaces.
And so when you take away that opportunity, when you take away this space from people,
you actually end up creating something that is detrimental to a community at large.
And the ways in which people do that, the policy, the policy, if we think about the policy
that was perpetrated in this particular condition, it's a vagrancy law.
And the vagrancy law seeks to push away people who are serving and are in place
and considered loitering in an unlawfully loitering within a place.
Now, vagrancy laws were used throughout the black codes in the 1800s throughout Jim Crow
in the early 1900s as a way to criminalize blackness, to criminalize those who were free,
and to put them back into jail, right?
And so that was a direct means, a procedure, that was put in place to navigate a policy
that was the 13th amendment that essentially said all free people, all people of color,
enslaved people are now free unless you are jailed or a felon.
And so the vagrancy laws were huge ways to do that.
And so when we think about the ways policies impact our future, our world,
it has direct impacts from the 1800s to today.
You see it happening.
And you see the impact of those things.
So our job, specifically as an architect, is to think about the ways in which a corner store,
as a safe space, is a bastion of hope for people.
And to acknowledge it and honor it.
And we can see that in the United States prison system,
the ways in which that has perpetrated the same considerations.
We can see it in the housing and urban development when we look at the ways
in which redlining destroyed black communities, destroyed the ways
in which those communities were able to gain equity over time.
You saw an increase in property value and family wealth in middle class,
white families exponentially through the late 1960s through the early 80s,
specifically based on the impacts of redlining.
And so when we talk about impoverished neighborhoods, when we talk about the fact
that neighborhoods of color don't have this, that or the other, we can directly link it back
to the ways in which the policy of the United States impacted our spacial justice.
And it continues, again, to this day.
These are the spaces that are now being gentrified.
When we talk about gentrification, we can't say it's a thing that happened today.
It's a thing that happened a hundred years ago and it's now just reaping its benefits
for those who sought to sow those seeds.
So there's a response.
There's always a response to that.
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was a party that sought to provide food and shelter
and safe spaces for people who were dealing with that oppression consistently.
There's always going to be a response.
So you saw that in separate but equal spaces, through schools, through Plessy versus Ferguson,
the impact of that being a Frantz school, which is the Ruby Bridges is
who you see in this image right here.
Fantastic image in a painting that everybody fawned over.
But this was a detrimental space for a young woman in New Orleans to have to go through,
to be the one to segregate a school, to desegregate a school.
And so again, responses.
The Rosenwald schools built over 5,000 schools, Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald,
throughout the early 1900s to provide safe spaces,
safe schooling for young children of color in the south.
Over 5,000 schools.
And these schools pioneered a lot of the environmental means
and methods of designing schools, right?
Because there was no air conditioning.
There weren't a lot of those things that you would generally put in school houses.
And so they made do.
And so really what that means is that when we think about the ways in which we impact design,
I often show this picture because the person who made this sign on the left-hand side,
the colored entrance sign, that sign,
that person went to work every day and just designed a sign, right?
They just designed the sign because that was their job, and it's a beautiful sign,
it's something that they had to do to get on to their next paycheck,
get home to their wife or husband or children.
And not ever really thinking about the impact of this sign on place,
on the people it was persecuting, the people it was oppressing.
That's super important.
The other sign that you see is about the immediacy.
It's still a sign.
It's still designed.
And it's still a symbol of urgency.
Both of these pictures taken by Gordon Parks, a civil rights photographer.
But I want people to fully understand the fact that ignoring your impacts on place and space,
it can show up in something as simple as a colored entrance sign, and have residual impact.
So we have to be cognizant of our decisions.
We have to be cognizant of the ways in which we continue systems
of oppression in the built environment.
So really, I want to talk to you a little bit about a few projects that have happened
over the course of three years in New Orleans, and where they're ending
and where we're going into the future.
So this is Take 'Em Down NOLA.
On the far left-hand side, you see a friend, "Quess" Michael Moore, who is leading activist
in New Orleans around taking down symbols of supremacy and oppression,
along with Angela Kinlaw, they had led this for the last few years.
And essentially, what they've done is bring to bear a previous conversation that happened many,
many years ago around these statutes.
Let's take down symbols of oppression because they are the things that are, again, holding up,
exalting a confederacy that not only lost, but saw so much,
put so much of their residual hatred into our environment.
And so they took about the task of changing that.
And so one of the things you can think about in New Orleans is, okay, do we have, you know,
a couple hundred black and brown bodies moving through the street in protest?
Yes, that is one way in which we do that.
But secondarily, what we think about is the fact that, you know, 2 to 3 to 400 black bodies,
black and brown bodies walking through the street in New Orleans is every Sunday.
So it's not as though, you know, a protest would be the only way to make an impact.
So we sought out to find a way to impact public space in a different way.
The way that happened, we did a light projection onto Robert E. Lee.
This podium here and the leaf circle statue is one
that we've been reflecting on and talking about over time.
One of the things we sought to do was to tell the whole story of Robert E. Lee,
to talk about the fact that he owned 197 slaves, to talk about the fact that he was brutal
to the people that were enslaved under him.
These are all important facts that don't get lifted up when we just have a statue of somebody
without the context of who they are in place and why they were so detrimental to so many people.
This is the Battle of Liberty Place Monument.
This is a monument that was specifically dedicated to the White League in New Orleans
who attempted to overthrow the New Orleans government.
And it's beyond me how this became a statute.
But that was there for 100 years.
And it was specifically to honor those who actually shot up a police station and fought
with the New Orleans government to try to overthrow it.
The federal guards have to be called in to take that down.
This was in honor of that.
And three weeks ago, we were able to finally have it removed.
So in doing so, this long march toward spacial justice was one step closer
to where we wanted it to be.
So all of this revolves around getting back to how we think
about the needs of the built environment.
So once we get past the visuals that continue to oppress us, we think about the functional needs
of the built environment, and we continue to push forward on that.
So shelter, food, healthcare, safety, education, commerce, and attainment, public space.
So all huge things.
So I'm going to tell you about two other projects that we do to kind of think
through this stuff and to perpetrate justice within the built environment.
So I run a project called Project Pipeline.
These are as built workshops in which young people of community members think specifically
about the way space can be intervened and then built into cities
and neighborhoods that have direct impact.
These young people take the time to think about those injustices in the built environment
and design solutions directly for them.
They've got four days, and they really, really dig into that.
One of the other ways is a project called Design as Protest.
We run this nationally.
On J-20, on January 20th, we actually had over 600 people across the country come together
to do a design day of protest, and to think about the ways in which we have administration
that is perpetrating, again, perpetuating some of those issues.
And all of this, I like to say that, you know, to protest is to have an unyielding faith
in the potential for a just society.
And design, at its best, should aspire to have such character.
This is super important because protest is not angry, it is not about the anger.
Let me not say it's not angry.
Because we are angry a lot of times.
But it is not about the anger.
It is about wanting a better future.
It is about hoping for a better answer to injustice
that has long since been past its sell date.
And so note that whenever you see protesters in the street,
you know that they are simply hosting and wanting a better future for them, their kid,
their grandkids, so on and so forth.
So these are some of the conversations we've had.
What are the things that you're most worried about?
And then what are the other concerns?
I'm going to talk to you lastly about one project.
These are, again, some of the things that we've been working through.
These are the ways in which we've sought to address them.
Whether that's immigration reform, affordable housing, justice reform.
People design these things in place and time.
The last thing I'll talk about is a new way for us to think
about doing concept sets for documents in architecture.
The Claiborne Midline is a project we're currently working on.
We host your typical, you know, community meeting.
But what we do is we host, we draw up a concept set that designs a space based
on the feedback we get from communities.
And then instead of annotating it with material annotations,
we actually talk about the annotations from the people.
What do they want?
What were their concerns?
What did they need?
And then that gave the people of the community the opportunity to respond to the visual
and the physical space rather than a set of documents that did not have any response.
So this is what that looks like.
And I'd be open to having any kind of conversation as we move forward on this.
Thank you for giving me your time.
And I'm going to turn this over to Antoinette to wrap up.
>> Thank you, Bryan.
I just love the way you mix history, policy history, real architecture,
environments, people, places, power.
It's great.
>> Thank you.
>> It's a great storytelling mode.
Thank you.
So we're going to call now Antoinette Carroll.
Antoinette is a familiar-- let me just get this out--
Antoinette is a familiar face and voice to AIGA.
She is a designer, a social impact designer and activist.
She's the founder and executive director of Creative Reaction Lab.
She's also the president of the chapter of AIGA in St. Louis.
And because she has, you know, a lot of time on her plate, she's also the founder
of the AIGA Diversity and Inclusion task force that is sitting here at the national office,
as well as the chair of the equivalent of the St. Louis chapter.
So I'm just naming a few current titles.
I won't go through the entire biography.
But thank you for being here, Antoinette.
I have the privilege of working with you on a number of projects at AIGA.
And it's nice to have you in this conversation, that you have been leading, and, you know,
pushing us to really think about this race issue,
and how design can actually tackle it as a problem.
So I'm going to let you speak.
And then we'll bring you back with Bryan for a Q and A.
>> Well, thank you, Laetitia.
Thank you, Bryan.
That was such a phenomenal presentation.
And when we talked about having this webinar for all the attendees,
one of the things I said was I want Bryan to go first.
And the reason why I said this is because I knew he would provide the historical context
and really have us start thinking about the systemic nature of these issues
of which we're trying to address.
We are trying to address issues that are centuries long.
And, you know, it's not an easy feat.
And it's not going to be dismantled in our lifetime.
Many times people hear about racism or any type of ism or any type of systemic oppression.
And our fight for equity.
And it can't be accomplished.
Why are you doing this?
And so my type of mindset the way I think is that, you know,
these are all drops in the bucket.
Ultimately, especially in my instance that I can tell from Bryan, for me,
it's about how do we create a snowball effect?
How do we create a network?
So, you know, I'm doing my effort to keep doing this work.
There's thousands of millions out there also doing their work.
And how do we continue to impact others that can continue to fight for this over time?
I'm going to actually show some slides, not as, you know, fantastic as Bryan's,
but I would like to share my experience.
So give me one second.
My conversation starts in August 9th, 2014.
And what's interesting is that some people believe
that this is when I started doing the work.
And that is not necessarily the case.
And so August 9th, 2014 was the day that Michael Brown, Junior was killed in Ferguson, Missouri.
And his body laid out in the middle of the street for hours upon hours
about any governmental assistance.
As a resident of St. Louis, Missouri, which is where Ferguson was located,
many people were not aware of that, this was something that was highly impactful on me
in my life as well as in my career.
Prior to this, we had already started the diversity and inclusion task force at AIGA.
We actually had decided June, 2014 to start this task force.
And then August 9th happened also in the same year, which was something
that I will say woke us up as an institution, but then also woke us up as a city.
Now, what's interesting is that at this time, St. Louis, Missouri was in the process
of celebrating our 250th birthday.
And so you have half of a city saying, oh, you know,
let's host galas, let's have birthday cakes.
Literally there were birthday cakes throughout the entire city.
And, you know, constantly looking at this celebratory type of, you know, session or time.
And then there was another half of the city, the half of the city that the majority
of time is forgotten, in which they use August 9th as a way
to start bringing voice to the concerns they've had.
They've been forgotten.
They've been erased.
They have not been brought to the table.
And so, you know, what are we going to do to address these systemic things?
And at the time, I was head of communications
at a non-profit called Diverse Awareness Partnership, had a communications and design.
And not only was I in the role with many of these diversity and inclusion practitioners,
but I also was in room with AIGA and other design professionals,
and we were asking the questions, what should we do?
And we received the stereotypical response,
which is what we like to do as graphic designers.
Let's do a poster campaign.
Let's do a social media meme campaign.
Let's, you know, use our methodology, and our method of craft, to build awareness around this.
But that wasn't enough for me.
Because I've seen the opportunity and the beauty
of cross-sector collaboration of intersectionality.
And I also recognize the talent of designers beyond, "hey, let's get in front
of our computer and do something."
And so I started to ask the question of why should designers,
and why should creatives be part of this process?
Now, many people will ask, "why design?"
We all know this at the table.
We recognize that design is everywhere.
That's just the reality of the situation.
People outside of design doesn't recognize it.
Because design is an invisible innovation.
It was a disruption before disrupt became the buzz word that it is now.
And the thing about design is that you know it's done well when it's invisible.
And so many people didn't really think to naturally call designers.
But that was another reason why I wanted designers to be at the table.
And that was-- excuse me-- that systems of oppression
and justice and inequities are designed.
Bryan alluded to this when he brought up the fact that there's race and there's racism.
And then there's also systemic racism, there's structural racism, and there's times in which I
like to say that we have chronic racial oppression.
And the reality is that these are design decisions.
These are not individual, one individual act, and then that's it, these are systems.
These are networks that were built.
And so my mind said if this was designed, if these decisions were designed,
if these policies were designed, if these actions were designed,
then why don't we use design to challenge them?
Why don't we use design to try to dismantle them?
Because reality is is that something has been designed that means that we can address it.
And it's not natural.
It is human-made.
And so we can have human-made responses to address it.
So at the time in 2014, it was a Creative Reaction Lab,
which is now a non-profit organization, it was just an event.
It was a 24-hour event in which we brought designers together to address issues
of racial inequality and police brutality.
And what was interesting about this is that it wasn't just let's, again,
get behind our computers, but it was also educational component, it was, you know,
ideation, it was all the different other words in the process that we like to throw out now.
And it was about challenging our own preconceived biases and assumptions,
and also lack of knowledge to then try to develop approaches to address them.
And so there was over 60 ideas that were pitched that ranged from looking at media narration
of such project right here to also talking about the talk in African-American community.
Whereas there were individuals in the room that had to ask, well, what's the talk?
And in the African-American community, we know well is the talk of safety,
it's the talk of assimilation, it's the talk
of what you should do whenever you are essentially placed in a situation
in which your color has thus been defined as your identity alone.
And so we have projects that touched me in different areas.
Ultimately, five were worked on throughout the night.
We had all five activated in St. Louis within a year.
There are two that are still active to this day.
One that was turned into an organizational framework for civic creatives.
And one that also was integrated within a high school curriculum.
And so very much team kind of this long-term impact.
This was almost two and a half years ago.
Long-term impact at the work in which we were doing.
And so this project you see here is Cards Against Brutality.
And this project was directly looking at media narration of media framing.
How many times we put labels on individuals.
And we see this in sexism and things of that nature.
We put labels on people to define who they are.
I like to say that thug is the new N word.
And if they wanted to take that narration back and say, well, these were someone's children,
these were someone's student, these were someone's daughter, mother, so on and so on.
But then we also had a project that was looking
at how do we address an idea of a culture of fear?
Because a culture of fear is very real.
It's things that kind of dictate our actions.
And what we're doing.
And in many cases, our biases, our unconscious biases that we're not even aware of.
There's actual research and stats that shows that there is a culture of fear
of the black male, that more than likely were going to cross the street or were going
to clutch our purse or were going to move to the side in an elevator.
The movie Crash a few years ago was trying to address this head-on.
And so this project wanted people to really start to have conversations
about things they're fearful of, and how that dictates our actions,
and how we need to become more conscious of it
so that we don't let our biases direct who we are as individuals.
Then we had a project looking at stereotyping.
And I would say this was probably the most kid-friendly one in which youth were able
to take this and reinvent this and look at it as how do we address bullying
as opposed to just saying stereotyping?
But, you know, in this instance,
they were looking at this idea of identity and individuality.
Stereotyping is the opposite of that.
Stereotyping and assumptions are saying I define you as this.
Whereas this project says, okay, you've been stereotyped, but not all your identity.
And recognize that we are intersexual,
recognize that we have many different identities that define us.
And then be proud of it and stand, and, you know, connect as a community around the fact
that we are who we are, and it's a beautiful thing.
And then another project was looking at this idea of civic matchmaking.
And this project was created by another designer named Deandrea Nichols.
She was on our Racial Justice by Design town hall conversation last year.
And this project was, one of her many, was looking at this idea
of matchmaking around civic issues.
You know, we have Tinder, we have match.com, we have all these different technological tools
to find our soul mate, or, you know, a side piece, if that's what you're looking for.
But with this, this project was looking at how do we take that concept
and have people come together to come
up with civic-based solutions, and then actually enact it?
And so this project gave the community power.
Or allowed them to amplify their power when it had closed because the intention
for this project was only during the protest, they had over 700 actions that had occurred
because of this one website, and the effort they were building
around community building and action.
And so going through this process, I realized, and especially even as an organization,
I realized that it is more than traditional design that we need to do.
It's more than having traditional designers at the table.
But in reality, what we actually need to do is redefine design and designers.
And we need to recognize that there's technically trained designers.
But then there's also designers and a commonality.
And that every decision we're making, there's a design decision.
And we need to ask our question of are we developing or designing a better world
through our actions and through our decisions?
And so there's many times in which I have this conversation in which I tell people
that human-centered design is not enough.
Design thinking is not enough.
I was just at a TEDx in Virginia this past weekend.
And one of the presenters, he works around cancer research for youth,
and particularly looking at how children are dying at an astronomical rate due to cancer.
And he brought up this slide of design thinking and said, well, while I love the process,
design thinking is not going to fix this.
And that's one of the things we need to have a conversation about as an industry, is saying,
okay, how do we use our talent, use our process, use our mode of thinking?
But then also recognize our own different issues that we need to address
to truly create a just design decision.
And so my organization Creative Reaction Lab,
we have a process we use called equity-centered design.
And equity-centered design doesn't start with empathy.
But we actually start with humility.
Because you can't empathize with individuals when you haven't even focused
on your own stereotypes, assumptions and biases that you have that may come
into play when trying to empathize.
But then also we look at this area of co-creation.
And not saying hey, let's just put a CEO, a Burger King worker and an artist in the room
and make it happen, and, you know,
as long as you have a good facilitator, it's going to be great.
But recognize that for the long haul, we need to also look at those power dynamics and look
at those barriers that are going to limit the authenticity of the work that we could create.
And so we kind of holistically are looking at these issues.
So this is just one tool that we use when having conversations with communities and trying
to essentially make them become community designers.
Because that's our goal.
It's like we want to create a new form of a civic leader.
We want to redefine what a community designer can be.
And then empower people that are either technically trained designers and not,
everyday designers, as some in the space like to say, and give them the ability
to design a better community when addressing these issues or many systemic issues.
And so this is our table of collaboration and co-creation process, in which we recognize
that everyone brings an expertise to the table.
And everyone has value.
Now, there's many times when we talk about power.
I've heard some people say, well, everyone has power.
I personally do not believe everyone has power.
Because there's many people in the world that are trying to get by through the basic needs,
like we talk about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, that are trying to have a shelter,
that are trying to have food, that are literally dealing with chronic health issues and things
of that nature in which they are trying to survive before they can even get
to this point of power and decision making.
But I will say I believe the majority of people have power,
and it's all about bringing the individuals up to recognize their power,
and then in some cases, leaning in and allowing some people to kind of share their power space
with you when you are privileged to have that type of power.
So go through very quickly kind of this highlight of the expertise and values
in which we want-- or not necessarily want, but we recognize in bringing people to the table.
So the first is the creative sector, which are pretty much, us.
But it also includes entertainers, it includes theater performers, it includes musicians
and public artists, and, you know, essentially these creators, these makers.
And we recognize that we're problem-solving and creativity experts.
We build something out of nothing every single day.
And we also, you know, are building for public engagement, public consumption.
I think when Bryan was talking about the signage in which the individual that came in
and created the "colored people", this is your doorway sign, you know,
that was created for people engagement,
the architectural structures were created for people engagement.
Even the logos were created for people engagement,
because ultimately institutions are led by people.
And so when we recognize that ability to connect with people, and thus define culture,
we recognize the value and expertise that we bring to the table.
Then we have the social and civic sector.
And these individuals are the frontline responders to an issue.
They know the policy, theory and history of a problem.
They are able to provide you with a holistic approach
of whatever issue you're trying to address.
Now, one thing I will say, in all of this,
everyone has to display a sense of vulnerability.
And also, of course, in designers, we recognize that while it may or not have worked
in one setting, it may potentially work in another.
And so in this industry, sometimes there's pushback
because well, we tried that, it didn't work.
Or they're so budget-stricken that they honestly are just kind of trying to move, move,
move, because that's all they can do.
And so in this situation, we're looking at cross-sector engagement,
but then also recognizing, again, the barriers that come into play to use these expertise
and values to the greatest way possible.
Then we have the business sector.
And honestly, we like to call them for money because they have money.
But, you know, there's a reason why they have it.
It's because they know about feasibility and scaleability and viability,
and essentially looking at it through a way of sustainability.
How are we going to sustain what we're doing?
And when we're addressing systemic issues such as this,
while one-offs are great, we need sustainable efforts.
And so we need individuals that are going to think
about how are we going to sustain this going forward?
And then lastly, but definitely not least, we need our community members.
And arguably, many times they are not included at the table when it comes to decision making.
We'll sometimes call them if we are a little bit more advanced,
we'll call them in for their expertise, you know, we do participatory budgeting
and things like that in the community.
And then, you know, there's what I like to call fake participatory engagement
in which we bring people in and say, we want your opinions
through town halls, things of that nature.
However, we essentially only-- we already made our decisions.
We just want you to come in and give us a little bit of insight on what we decided.
Whereas in this situation, we recognize that they are the living experts.
They know the day-to-day impact of whatever we're trying to address.
Now, many times we have to shift our language because honestly we traditionally
like to use a lot of lingo and vernacular, but if you were to go to someone,
and I'll use myself as an example, I grew up lower income.
I don't shy away from that.
I recognize that that is something that made me who I am today.
And growing up, I thought that making $19,000 was a lot.
I thought that-- that was my goal in life, because that was what I was taught.
So I grew up in poverty.
But I also thought that I received a quality education.
I thought that incarceration was the norm.
I thought that all these different things
in which I was seeing in my community was commonality.
And so if someone was to come to me and say, tell me about the school in a prison pipeline,
I would have no idea what they were talking about.
But if they would have asked me, how many times have you been suspended?
How many times have your family members been suspended?
Have you seen anyone incarcerated in your family?
I can give you any of that information because I've experienced it.
I know exactly how it impacts our community even at a basic level.
So this is an example of a woman that I like to call a community designer in our community.
Her name was Nicole Hudson.
When Ferguson occurred, she was a communications director.
She wasn't a designer.
She was more of a writer, more of a strategist.
And an institution called the Ferguson Commission asked her
to come on as a communications director.
Because she did such a phenomenal job, and she recognizes these issues as communication issues,
when you talk about race and they're communication issues,
when you talk about these issues that are awareness issues,
she recognizes that it's partially due to that.
She took it to the communication stance to it.
She did such a great job, they asked her to be the leader of the non-profit account
that was built out of it called Forward Through Ferguson.
Again, led through a communications lens.
Because of the work that she did, they thus asked her to be the senior policy advisor
on strategic initiatives and racial equity, the first position ever to be created like that
in a governmental agency in St. Louis.
And it's because she saw the power of creation and saw the power
of awareness when challenging these issues.
And then there's individuals like Travis Sheridan.
Travis Sheridan, he is what you truly call a community designer.
He himself likes to say that he is a designer without the actual craft.
But, you know, with him, he believes in building serendipitous collisions.
He's around designing, collaboration, connection and communities.
And so he looks at, does this through art, he also does it through, you know,
community gatherings, as well as his favorite thing, which is beer,
through programs such as Blue Storming.
And so when looking at the power that we all could bring to the table
when addressing these systemic issues, and looking at the value that we can bring
to the table, we thus can become the researchers,
we can become the teachers, the strategists, the doers.
And when we do that, when we start to address these implicit biases, when we start to lead
with humility opposed to empathy, when we start to think about it through the lens of creation
and co-creation, while addressing barriers, we then are able to, you know,
build civic engagement through creative problem-solving.
And we are able to transform our communities.
And transform it more than just change.
We want more than change.
We want transformation.
And when we do that, that's when we're going to systemically start
to dismantle some of these issues.
And so the last thing I just want to leave you with is that you need to move beyond:
let's work with each other, you know, people that make us feel comfortable
because you understand my language.
But we need to work with each other to co-create and address these issues holistically,
because if we don't start to do cross-sector work, if we don't start with self,
we are then going to continue to perpetuate the issues that are there, and it's just going
to continue to go on and on over the years.
Thank you.
>> Oh, thank you, everyone.
So thank you, Antoinette, for a fantastic presentation.
Really great compliment to what Bryan addressed.
I'm going to jump here with a couple of comments and questions.
And then we'll open up to the floor.
>> Certainly.
>> I heard an interesting word that Brian used, strata, stratification of the design profession.
And you, Antoinette, mentioned this idea of a community designer.
I think that there is something really powerful in this idea.
And I would love to hear more about it.
How do you go about training someone who is engaged in this seemingly design conversation
without necessarily using the word design, as a matter of fact, but sort of this idea
that you mentioned to me, Bryan, on the phone earlier, which I love this metaphor of,
why is the healthcare system not just doctors, but also nurses?
And nurses are here to support the doctors.
Why can't we use the same thing for design profession?
>> Yeah, certainly.
>> Can you expand on this?
>> I sure can.
So the idea being that, you know, if you lose 40% of the profession in nurses,
you're actually losing the people who touch the patients, who are there for them
at their bedside, who talk to them when they need to, so on and so forth.
That's actually what we're missing from the design profession at large.
We're missing the people who are ground level, who are, you know,
checking the heartbeat of the community.
And they exist.
That's the problem is that they exist so much so that when you reach out to artists or you reach
out to activists, they are excited to be a part of this process in ways, you know, Antoinette
and I work with artists and activists all the time and are part of that community.
And so when you hear it and you see it and you know that they are every bit as capable,
they know all of this information, they know all of the history, you recognize the fact
that they can have an exponential impact on our processes very easily.
And there are already systems in place in other professions that allow this to work,
whether that's paralegals, or whether that's nurses, and the like.
So we, as designers, have systemically, again, through process, we've said, you know,
at least in architecture, you've got to go through seven years
of design practice in order to be an architect.
And that's all.
There's no other way into the profession.
There's no other way to interact.
That's bull if you're actually trying to make any real change.
>> Yeah, I 100% agree with that.
And that's actually why we are focusing
on building essentially an army of community designers.
You know, whether it's structurally or systemically recognized,
we're still going to do the work.
I will be honest.
I'm known as someone that challenges the status quo.
I'm known as someone that essentially likes to build, to create things better.
And so for me, whether we have buy-in from I will say the leaders of design or not,
I am going to continue to build that community.
And I can't tell you how many times people have come to me, saying, how do you do what you do?
And it's traditional designers with craft.
And then there's also, to Bryan's point, community leaders.
There's, you know, people that are working in non-profits.
There's people that are activists on the ground.
There's, you know, artists.
There's youth, that are saying, how can we use design practices to,
you know, address these larger issues?
And I will say, you know, the thing about design, it is a new field, you know?
And I say new as in language assigning, not new as in what we've done.
Because design has always been around.
We've just now gave it a term, essentially.
And so with the work that we're doing, we're, like I said, using our methodology to build
up that new army and kind of amplify the work and say, you know, designers,
you can be part of this process as well, traditional designers, but then recognize
that we do have to share power for that to happen.
>> Exactly, which was the idea of spreading power.
Not powder.
Power. I think that maybe could it be like a challenge for AIGA to, you know, in a way,
like question the very hierarchical design profession and question whether this idea
of like democratization of design power, because let's just put those two words together,
is something that's a little scary, and, you know, questioning a lot of the sort
of established master apprentice model, the paradigms of, you know, as you were saying,
Bryan, like you need to be sort of accredited architects to practice architecture, while,
you know, the rest of the world is building architecture left and right
without any architect to start with, right?
>> So that is absolutely correct.
So one of the things you said, yes, I do believe AIGA should.
I do believe that AIGA should also connect with AIA and ASLA and the Urban League,
not urban league, well, yeah, urban league also.
You know, the urban planners, the organizations, all of the organizations actually
that are dealing with the built environment, graphically or otherwise, should be talking
and in the same room in the same way that we're attempting to bring together voices
at a ground level that are able to speak to this work.
We have to say at the top level, who, you know, these systems that are in place,
there has to be some unilateral conversations at the top as well.
Because, you know, we're not always going to be able to push through
and this fight may not end with us.
It definitely won't end with us.
But, you know, that conversation will only change when it starts
with both sides pushing, pushing it from both ends.
>> And the last thing I would add, I don't know if we have any questions from the audience,
but AIGA is in this position of power.
That is honestly one of the greatest assets for AIGA, is that they are able
to reach in places that others cannot.
And whether it's corporate engagement or whether it's, you know, convening designers,
if AIGA was to say, hey, all other design institutions, you know,
service design institutions, SEGD, the ones that Bryan mentioned, let's come together
and have a larger conversation around addressing these systemic issues, and, you know,
kind of the hierarchy within our own industries, they could do that.
They will receive a call-back.
Whereas individuals that are at base ground level could try that and may not ever hear back.
I mean, that's just the reality.
So do it, AI should do it, AIGA should do it, of course.
That's one of the things I continually push through the diversity inclusion work,
and as Laetitia knows, even on the Design for Good space a little bit.
And, you know, all these different areas.
I'm constantly pushing, how do we become collaborative and not just collaborative
where it's agenda-leading, but looking at the agenda
as the larger institution industry overall.
And really starting to look at it through the lens of social innovation,
opposed to kind of just individual development.
>> Or practice.
Or professional practice.
Okay, we have one question that I thought was interesting about going back to this notion
of empathy and humility that you mentioned, Antoinette, someone asked Bryan, like,
what was it like to build empathy or with the people that were involved in these statues
in New Orleans, and maybe the ones even that were not understanding what you were trying
to do, how did you sort of establish connection and communications with those people?
>> Yeah, I mean, it was mostly through the kind of interfacing and the built environment.
It wasn't a lot of, you know, when you're dealing with something that has been rooted
for so long, building empathy with those who don't seek your own humanity
or seek to dehumanize you is very, very difficult.
And so what we attempted to do was just reveal layer by layer by layer all of the story, right?
And I think when people who are on the fence about any of these statues were able
to get the full clarity of the story,
you started to see the shed towards the side of taking them down.
So it wasn't necessarily about approaching those who are fully on the other side.
And I shit you not, I'll tribute this to my dear friend, Abdul Aziz,
who's been writing some really wonderful stuff for City Lab.
He interviews and has been taking a lot of shots during the taking down of the monuments.
One of the confederate people essentially said, in looking at the statue
of Jefferson Davis coming down, this feels like a lynching, you know?
I mean, without irony, like that is--
so it's very hard to build empathy with people of that nature.
Now, like I said, those few on the fence were able to understand how dire it is
when you have something like that said or when you tell the full story of the amount
of slaves someone owns, or you protest on the street.
That's where you win the battle.
>> There's another term that you used several times, safe space.
I find it very interesting that you use it in a sort of built environment context,
and you used it in places where precisely that sort of seemingly safe space
of common everyday activities, street life was certainly challenged,
where police brutality happened in front of everyone.
And I know that the diversity and inclusion conversation at AIGA, but also in general,
has sort of advocated for this safe space.
And I'm wondering whether you guys think that it's the right, it's certainly the right term
or the right notion to keep in mind when in fact we are all trying to use our democratic rights.
I mean, why is protesting such a big deal in America?
It's like it's your right as a citizen, right?
So I'm just curious to know how you guys both take this notion,
or use it or not use it, or expand on?
These are healthy conversations.
They might be violent, they might be uncomfortable.
I mean, the statue is a good example of like how a symbol is suddenly like crumbling, right?
It's most physical, visual, architectural community that's questioning all of this.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, I think when it comes to safe spaces, so one, safe space is in the eye of the holder.
And I think we need a combination of both.
We need safe spaces.
But then we also need those spaces in which we are uncomfortable, in which dissent happens.
Because I tell people all the time, when doing this work, you know,
we need dialogue, and we need action.
No, we don't need debate.
We need dialogue, which is something we don't do enough of.
But then, you know, when doing this work, it is messy.
And, dissent is encouraged.
If we-- I'll give you an example of it was last year that we held workshops and labs
around this larger issue of gun violence.
And I kid you not, in one room, one half of the room were like, no, guns are the issues.
Burn them.
We need to be like Australia.
Let's get rid of them all.
And then the other side of the room was like guns are not the issue, it's people.
You know, we need to address the issue with people.
And then, you know, even one of the teams that came up with their project idea,
which I didn't share today, it was called Body Count.
But they were showing the economic impact of a lost death.
It's based on cities.
Because they wanted to reach across to communities that have a tendency to say
that that's not my issue, that's not my problem,
that's not my community, you know, why should I care?
And so it is messy.
And there are times in which you need to be in people's face, which is where protesting--
and that's why protesting is different in marches.
When you're in people's face, you're saying, you know, enough is enough, we need change,
we need action, we need something to do, we need to really challenge these issues.
But then also there's moments in which we need to save space
because honestly being a black woman, it is tiring sometimes.
I mean, it really is.
Bryan said it earlier when he was like, yeah,
sometimes we are angry, like you said we're not angry.
Literally, Baldwin said to look at the racism in our world.
Honestly we would constantly be in anger when we think about it.
I mean, when we really think about the fact that I have to pay attention to what I'm wearing,
and that kind of depicts how people will treat me.
I've been treated differently in the same hospital if I have on jogging pants
versus if I had on my business clothes.
Like that is a reality.
And so sometimes I need a safe space where-- and my organization would call it cultural history
and healing, I need a space to heal.
I need a space to address these issues that are systemically impacting me.
And so I think we need essentially both to kind of address these issues.
>> Right.
>> Yeah. From my instance, I think there's two, you know, words mean an awful lot.
And safe space, when it comes to debate or dialogue
around racial or cultural issues is one thing.
Safe spaces within communities free
from the oppressive forces that are constantly encroaching.
That is more what I am referring to when I say that.
So if I know that I have beat cops that are always, always walking my block, right,
if that is constantly a thing, it raises the consideration.
I hear a lot of actually women talk about street harassment in this same fashion,
and that is that it is always-- you're always in pursuit.
Somebody's always in pursuit.
And it always feels like there's something behind you coming for you.
That is essentially the same thing when you're talking
about police officers in some of these communities.
You always feel tight.
You always feel like somebody is on the cusp of taking your life away from you.
And that is a horrible way to walk through your environment, constantly on edge.
So safe space is really about those spaces where you don't have to feel like, you know,
this could come to an end in an instant.
>> Right. And the beautiful definition also of public space.
So we have to wrap up.
Okay, I have to look over there.
We have to wrap up.
I have one last question to close, which is actually from the public.
And that is-- and please keep it short.
What's your favorite ways of engagement?
Is it the town hall, is it at community gathering, is it a social media campaign?
I mean, if any, I'm sure it's a combination of everything, but if you could just close on that,
your personal experience using these different tactics of engagement,
and telling us which one you prefer.
>> So I'm going to quickly-ish answer.
Because when we started our engagement, we're community labs, is what we used to call them,
community reaction labs, which were 24-hour labs.
We also do shorter form ones.
And we saw a great amount of diversity that attended.
And also this sense of empowerment.
However, that being said, and this is why I said ish, we now have built actual structure
where it's like a year-long program that you participate in that community members kind
of engage in that throughout the process, where we are looking at kind of longer term learning,
as well as longer term community engagement.
Because, again one-off events are great, but we're trying to address systemic issues.
And so we need to kind of longer form processes to make it happen.
>> Right, an after-school program.
>> Yeah, so for me, I would say very similar, actually.
I appreciate organizing.
And so the idea-- so I have a program.
We built a board game called The Just City.
And one of the programs I showed you earlier, Project Pipeline.
And so we go in the schools and we teach thousands of students across the country
about social justice through design.
The board game itself is really interesting.
I love the board game.
So it's very interesting for me to work with the students
and see them work through and understand.
I mean, that's the thing, key.
Within like two weeks, they understand the ways in which neighborhoods have those positive
and negative detractors, and they are able to respond to them in kind.
So yeah, that's probably the way that I find most endearing.
>> A better Monopoly.
A better Monopoly game.
Well, thank you, both of you, for a fantastic conversation.
I could stay here the entire afternoon and continue engaging with you, I'm sure.
The audience would have more questions for us.
But I'm not kidding, I really want to continue this conversation at AIGA.
And we're in the midst of trying to figure it out.
What format does it take?
Who is engaged in it?
What do we do about it?
But it's fantastic.
>> Well, tweet us and ask us questions and get involved.
I'm @designjusticeplatform.org, and colloqate.org.
And come see us.
>> Yep, and creativereactionlab.com and @acarrolldesign on Twitter,
as well as @CreativeReactionLab on Twitter.
>> Thank you again, both of you.
So this video will be with closed captions, and it will be put up on our YouTube channel
to join five other videos that have been recorded over the past six months.
Again, this program at AIGA is for Design for Good.
The webcast series is funded by NEA, with additional funding from IBM.
We will have one last webcast produced under this series on Friday, May 26th.
And we will address design for veterans.
I really encourage you to come and join this conversation as well.
Thank you, everyone.
And see you soon.
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