If the design of our environments is a text that can be used to decode hidden meanings and obscured institutional values and biases, then design is a tool that’s equally up to the task of picking apart these inequities. That’s the intent of the second edition of the Black in Design Conference at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, subtitled “Designing Resistance, Building Coalitions,” and previewed by LAM earlier this month. Hosted by the Harvard GSD African American Student Union, the conference, held October 6-8, documents the effects of the African diaspora across the globe and the design fields, and questions the barriers and inhibitions to agency this community still faces. Its goal? More “radical and equitable futures.”
Across 10 hours of the conference, filmed and posted here, the organizers hear from a wide swath of design professionals, including planners, architects, artists, and landscape designers, such as Walter Hood, ASLA, and Diane Jones Allen, ASLA.
