Research (event or work)
Changing “The Master Plan”: Hybridity and Black art and Design
Parsons School of Design at The New School hosted its first international conference on the state of Black culture in art and design education recently. The lens of day two of the conference revolved around past and current qualms of Black Cultural Production: its value is great yet not enough of it is presented on a grand scale. Two sets of panelists discussed the history, present, and future of black cultural art through their own artistic endeavours.
Renowned interdisciplinary artist and organizer of this conference, Coco Fusco set the dynamic tone for the day with fiery statements on current government budget cuts for art programs. Fusco postulated that the issue is not that she or any other educator has to teach to black students about black culture, or to assert that black culture is important to learn, but as Fusco put it in her speech “every student from every walk of life understands black culture’s relevance”. Fusco commented that Republican politicians have constructed a language that has called for a rationale as to why Black culture needs to be taught. To such politicians, it is seen as a “special interest discipline”. Fusco instead urged the crowd to think in a strategic way on how to change this way of thinking in public discourse.
Noel Mayo, keynote speaker, owner of his own design firm, and professor at Ohio State University, echoed Fusco’s call for strategic planning in Black art and design education. He started by referencing John Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction with troubling statistics of the United States. 27% of people in the U.S are illiterate and there is an average 35% high school dropout rate, 55% of that being students in black communities. Mayo posited that counselling in schools is not where it needs to be. As high school dropout rates in black communities increase, incarceration rates correlate. Mayo proposed an idea to counteract these statistics by offering prisoners high school education for a lesser sentence. Mayo explained that many people have rejected this idea in the past by asking “Why should they get a free education? So we can have smarter criminals?” While these responses are troubling, they are not all that surprising as the prison and education systems are two of our most controversial institutions. Putting trust in the marketplace, Mayo urged the audience to not place energy on purposing negatives or faults but put forth new ideas.
Most audience responses however, where critical, specifically with Mayo’s assertion that online education can be the key to balancing higher education demographics in art and design. Mayo negated criticism by offering “if not through a formal online education, than through a process of self-teaching via instructional videos”. Many members of the audience (who happened to be panelists from the previous day) saw a for-profit model of alternative institutions as being problematic. Mayo stood his ground however, by explaining that our problems are not going to be solved by the system, we have to solve them. So unless we can come up with creative and cheap alternatives to education, art and design education will continue to be taught to fewer black Americans.
The panelists that followed the keynote presented polemics on Art and Design Schools and Black Community Engagement. The panelists came from diverse backgrounds, two putting forth historical analysis of black art and design, and the other two showcasing their own current work in the field. Susan Cahan, an associated dean from Yale College, offered a historical lens through her thesis that art historic movements of community art spaces in New York City were segregated spaces for larger established museums in the 1970s (MoMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art) to push black art into black institutions. With the establishment of museums like Studio Museum in Harlem and El Museo del Barrio, larger museums were justified in not incorporating more diversity into their own museum walls. Damon Rich, Urban Designer for the City of Newark, also took a historical approach by his discussion of looking at the history and physical structure of a city as a way to understand power dynamics that lie within it. He referred to this as an urban pedagogy.
The other two panelists set forth to explain their current artistic work that aims to hybridize tradition and modernity in black art and design.
Stephen Burkes, a renowned industrial designer, showcased his work in South Africa, Senegal, India, and indigenous communities in Australia, working with traditional artisans and expanding their market through collaboration. He was introduced to these countries through his work with the Aide to Artisans organization, for which he is a contractor. Many of these designs are commissioned by large design firms and the artisans maintain their production rights. The relationship has dual functions; it is a means for design firms to gain the authenticity they desire through the incorporation of an work in communities around the world, and the collaboration helps build and maintain communities of Artisans where their work is valued.
Pepon Osorio, artist and professor of Arts in the Community at Tyler School of Art, discusses his alternative classroom dynamics. He expressed his belief in a pedagogy of community engagement. The student artists are placed into local families in an underserved community, creating a dialogue between disparate groups. The students create work that engages with the local families. The class that facilitates the program meets in the neighborhood at the site of local businesses, which helps local economies. The families benefit from artwork being created that stays with the family and becomes a part of their lives, while the student is exposed to cultural practices that were not known to them before. This type of program creates a cross pollination between the institutions of higher learning and groups that are outside of margins of academia.
A student panel followed this one, where 5 current and past students of Parsons discussed their paths to pursuing an art and design degree as students of color. For the first of its kind, Parsons hosted a successful international conference on black art and design education. For future conferences, gender would be another power dynamic that would be interesting to mix in with such discussion on black cultural production in the field. The economic tone of the day’s events shed a new light on how to put forth change effectively in a field that can thrive under refreshing new voices. However, change seemed to be emphasized by material production. In a heightened technological age where individuals can achieve significant success, unheard voices still have difficulty being voiced. So as Pepon Osorio explained, alternative institutions need to force issues and platforms to open up on their behalf.
Contributed by: Zemen Kidane, Curatorial Fellow