This post brought to you by Black in Design

The Harvard University Graduate School of Design African American Student Union is excited to announce the second biannual Black in Design conference on October 6-8, 2017.

The conference promotes discourse around the agency of the design profession to address and dismantle institutional barriers faced by communities of color. The second edition, Designing Resistance, Building Coalitions, builds on the success of the 2015 inaugural conference, which brought together more than 400 design researchers and practitioners from across the United States. The conference will cover a range of topics from Exploring and Visualizing Identities, Communicating Values, Mobilizing and Organizing to Design Futuring, with the aim of serving as a platform to unearth our agency as designers to envision more radical and equitable futures.

Saturday features a full day of a fantastic array of speakers, including Michelle Wilkinson of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, landscape architect and creative director of Hood Studio, Walter Hood, and Antionette Carroll of the Creative Reaction Lab in St. Louis. Please visit the conference website for full details. The Saturday proceedings are capped off with keynote speaker DeRay Mckesson, activist, visionary, and voice for social action speaking at 6:00 PM.

The conference concludes on Sunday with an interactive and generative workshop that reflects on the discourse of the conference by directly addressing equity and justice. Toni Griffin and the Just City Lab at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design will lead the facilitation

While the political climate we face today is tenuous, the forces of systemic injustice are not new. Our exploration of design as resistance will show how designers are advocates and activists, and will highlight the contributions made by leaders across nontraditional fields in creating spaces for actions. We hope to continue to grow our network of black and brown designers, and invite you to join us on October 6-8, 2017. For more information, please visit the conference website or email blackindesign.gsd@gmail.com.

Tickets on sale now.

The Harvard Graduate School of Design African American Student Union (GSD AASU) is a group of African American, Black, Biracial, Multiracial, and Non-Black students. As a group, we support the advancements of African Americans in the areas of architecture, landscape architecture, design, real estate, urban design, and urban planning. We cultivate a space of belonging at the Graduate School of Design, in a country that has historically denied African Americans such spaces.

The 2017 Black in Design conference is organized by Natasha Hicks (MUP/MDes ’19), Marcus Mello (MArch I/MUP ’18), Amanda Miller (MDes ’17), Armando Sullivan (MUP ’18), and Chanel Williams (MUP ’18).