Presenters
Theaster Gates
Theaster Gates lives and works in Chicago. Gates creates work that focuses on space theory and land development, sculpture and performance. Drawing on his interest and training in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces that have been left behind. Known for his recirculation of art-world capital, Gates creates work that focuses on the possibility of the “life within things.” Gates smartly upturns art values, land values, and human values. In all aspects of his work, he contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise – one defined by collective desire, artistic agency, and the tactics of a pragmatist. He was the winner of the Artes Mundi 6 prize and was a recipient of the Légion d'Honneur in 2017. He was awarded the Nasher Prize for Sculpture 2018, as well as the Urban Land Institute, J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. Gates is a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts and the College.
Session > Theaster Gates in Conversation with Maya Bird-Murphy
Katherine Darnstadt
Katherine Darnstadt is the founder of Latent, an architecture and urbanism practice exploring the influence of design as small or as large as the context allows. Since founding her firm in 2010, Katherine and her firm have pursued projects at the bench, building, and block scale to prototype new urban design systems. She and the firm have been published, exhibited, and featured widely, most notably at the International Venice Architecture Biennial, Architizer A+ Awards, Chicago Ideas Week, NPR, American Institute of Architects Young Architects Honor Award winner and Crain’s Chicago 40 Under 40. She has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University.
Session > Chicago Histories,
Chicago Futures
Verda Alexander
Verda Alexander is the Editor-at-Large at Metropolis Magazine, the co-founder of Studio O+A, and co-host of “Break Some Dishes,” a podcast that engages innovators in conversations about meeting the challenges of climate change. Verda has spent 30 years in the design industry redefining the workplace and looking ahead to the future of work itself. Combining a multi-disciplinary career with a passionate commitment to improving lives through design, her typical contribution to a project is to question received wisdom, test basic assumptions, and look beyond conventional solutions to a more creative path.
Session > Alternative Practice
Kareem Blair
In the role of heading Special Projects and Global Product Graphic Design for Brand Jordan in Portland, Oregon, Kareem Blair has spearheaded transformative design initiatives, playing a pivotal role in orchestrating high-profile collaborations with leaders like Gore-Tex, Off-White, Fragment Japan, Union LA, Travis Scott, and Billie Eilish. In 2017, Kareem's design portfolio witnessed a significant expansion through a collaboration with MIT’s Media Lab, an eminent global innovation center renowned for its pioneering work in sustainable design. His profound involvement in sustainability led Nike to engage him in collaborative efforts with their Sustainability, Business & Innovation team in 2018. Kareem has also contributed as a guest lecturer at Pratt Institute.
Session > Future of Fashion
Alex Priest
Alex Priest is a queer cultural producer based in Chicago. Raised in a large working-class family in the deep-rural heartland, he earned a degree in Landscape Architecture and Design Studies with a focus on architectural theory from Iowa State University. One of his ongoing research initiatives examines the intersection of fashion and public space. His expertise includes leading community-engaged projects, commissioning artist-driven initiatives, producing inclusive didactic material, and curating within the public realm. Currently, Alex serves as Artistic Director at Seelman Landscape Architecture. He is a member of the Chicago Dragons rugby team and AIA Chicago’s LGBTQIA+ Alliance.
Session > Future of Fashion
Craig Stevenson
Craig Stevenson is a Chicago native passionate about the mind-body-spirit connection and using arts and culture, business, education, leadership development, and design as tools for social change. He is dedicated to building thriving, sustainable communities using creative placemaking. Craig works in the intersections of arts and culture, community healing, storytelling, social impact, and spatial design. Along with creative strategy with CRADLE ideas, he continues his advocacy as the Co-Chair of Open Architecture Chicago which practices equitable socially-responsive public interest design. In 2022 Craig was awarded Design 50 in Chicago by Newcity Magazine.
Session > Land & Place-Keeping
Tura Cousins Wilson
Tura Cousins Wilson is an architect from Toronto and co-founder of the Studio of Contemporary Architecture (SOCA). He is a licensed architect in Ontario and the Netherlands and also a founding member of BAIDA. Tura’s interest and experience spans a variety of scales and building types, including exhibition design, housing, cultural spaces, and urban design. SOCA is the recipient of the 2023 Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture, a contributor representing Canada at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture, and has been awarded the 2023 Emerging Architectural Practice Award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
Session > Alternative Practice
Melodi Serna
Melodi Serna is a Fellow at the American Express Social Justice Leadership Academy and an Owner at MSK Consulting LLC, where she applies her nearly 20 years of experience as a Business and Tribal Consultant. She is passionate about empowering Native-led organizations and communities, promoting Native American rights and values, and decolonizing business practices and policies. As a fifth-generation Native veteran, Melodi draws on her military and medical background to advocate for developmental disability equity and awareness, especially for Native youth. She is also a Youth Council Advisor for Chicago’s Indigenous Tribal Youth Council. Melodi has created and implemented multiple campaigns and curricula to combat lateral violence and foster lateral kindness within Indian Country. She is a recipient of the 2022 Outstanding Community Leader of the Year and the 2023 Alice BigPond Roach Memorial Award.
Session > Land & Place-Keeping
Stephen Cortez
Stephen Cortez is an architectural designer and program facilitator at Mobile Makers Chicago. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a degree in architecture and a certificate in urban planning. He is passionate about youth engagement and making change at the local level. As someone who grew up in a disinvested community, Cortez is motivated to use his design skills and knowledge to support young people and ignite change to uplift communities. He has led many Mobile Makers Chicago design and architecture workshops and pop-ups, has co-facilitated community engagement meetings for local architecture projects, and was the lead designer for outdoor furniture commissioned by The Arts Club of Chicago.
Session > CAB Youth Council Presentation
Karli Honroth
Karli Honroth is an interdisciplinary designer, artist, and educator. She is a program facilitator at Mobile Makers Chicago. She has a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a focus on architecture and designed objects. Karli spent most of her childhood in Shanghai and Hong Kong, making her a third-culture kid. Her experiences led to her passion for diversity, culture, identity, and community. She believes in supporting youth in their interests to build a better future. Karli was the project manager for Mobile Maker’s “We Will Chicago” Block Party and is leading its Artist-in-Residency at the Chicago Cultural Center. Karli has also worked on multiple projects in North Lawndale with NLCCC GROWWS youth council and as a teaching artist at SAIC at Homan Square.
Session > CAB Youth Council Presentation
Jen White-Johnson
Jen White-Johnson is an Afro-Latina Disabled/Neurodivergent Artist, Disability Cultural Activist and Design Educator whose visual work explores the intersection of content and caregiving with an emphasis on redesigning ableist visual culture. As an artist-educator with Graves disease and ADHD, her heart-centered and electric approach to disability advocacy bolsters these movements with invaluable currencies: powerful, dynamic art and media that all at once educates, bridges divergent worlds, and builds a future that mirrors her Autistic son’s experience. Jen has collaborated with Coachella, Target, Adobe. Her photography is permanently archived at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National African American Museum of History and Culture in DC. Jen lives in Baltimore, MD with her husband and 10-year-old son.
Session > Featured Speaker:
Jen White-Johnson
Maya Bird-Murphy
Maya Bird-Murphy is a designer, educator, and the founder of Mobile Makers, an award-winning nonprofit organization bringing design and skill-building workshops to underrepresented communities. Bird-Murphy believes the design field must expand to include more people and perspectives through teaching and community engagement. She was selected by Theaster Gates and the Prada Group as an Experimental Design Lab awardee, featured as one of 50 people who shape Chicago in Newcity Magazine, received the 2022 Pierre Keller Prize at the Hublot Design Prize ceremony in London, and was selected as a 2023 Harvard Wheelwright Prize Finalist.
Session > Theaster Gates in Conversation with Maya Bird-Murphy
Sheila Rashid
Sheila Rashid, Chicago's bespoke designer, has shown remarkable talent in her journey to create pieces that confront and curtail gender identity. This unisex brand takes a new approach to creativity, simplicity, and persistence. Sheila's goal has been to design with a unique perspective and an acute attentiveness to detail. Her brand’s individuality has attracted many popular artists, such as Zendaya, Lena Waithe, Bella Hadid, and Chance the Rapper to name a few. Each of her pieces is made-to-order and reflects her own sense of style, combining both tomboy and feminine qualities.
Session > Future of Fashion
Anjulie Rao
Anjulie Rao is a journalist and critic covering the built environment. Based in Chicago, much of her work reckons with the complexities of post-industrial cities; explores connections to place and land; and exposes intersections between architecture, landscapes, and cultural change. She is the founder and editor of Weathered, a publication focused on cities and landscapes in the wintertime.
Anjulie is a Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an Adjunct faculty member at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is a columnist at ARCHITECT magazine, and her bylines can be found in The Architect's Newspaper, Dwell, Landscape Architecture Magazine, The Architectural Review, The New York Review of Architecture, among others.
Session > Reinventing Design Education
Lucy Angel Camarena
Lucy Angel Camarena is a serial entrepreneur and community builder in Chicago — the city that raised her. Her businesses and projects span across the categories of event production to health and wellness to food equity and work together, with the goal of creating a thriving and more equitable Chicago. She was recently highlighted by Time Magazine & Don Julio as one of 80 Mexicans Shaping Contemporary Culture. Lucy is the founder of Campo Santo, a floral company, Luce Ends, a cultural programming and event production agency, and the co-founder of Grocery Run Club — a non-profit focused on providing food security to the folks on Chicago’s South and West sides.
Session > Land & Place-Keeping
Reza Nik
Reza Nik is a Toronto-based licensed architect, artist and educator. He is the founding director of SHEEEP, an experimental art and architecture studio working primarily within community, activism, culture, education and public art/architecture. Reza has a background in Art History and he is currently an Assistant Professor in the Teaching Stream at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design and the University of Toronto. Reza is also one of the founding members and the co-steward of the Toronto chapter of the Architecture Lobby, an organization advocating for labor rights for architectural workers and encouraging more critical discourse within the profession.
Session > Reinventing Design Education
Claudia Ansorena
Claudia Ansorena is a Cuban-American architectural designer, artist, and educator. She is a program facilitator at Mobile Makers and the co-founder of Resolver Studio, a design practice based in Chicago that embraces architecture as the backdrop of everyday life. With a focus on care, context, and consciousness, Claudia’s work and research spans a range of scales and media, from intimate objects to expansive urban ensembles. Claudia has been an adjunct professor at the schools of architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the University of Miami, and Florida Atlantic University.
Session > Reinventing Design Education
Summer Coleman
Summer Coleman is an “STA 100” award-winning designer from Riverdale, Illinois. Her love for fine arts began in high school and quickly turned into a career after attending the University of Illinois of Chicago, where she received her BFA in fine arts. In 2008, Summer graduated and began her career as an artist and designer for the city of Chicago, its organizations, and its artists. Organizations and artists included but were not limited to Amanda Williams, the University of Chicago, Latent Design, and The Silver Room. She is also a part of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, a three-year initiative led by Theaster Gates and the Prada Group. Summer Coleman is dedicated to building brands for all, especially within her community.
Session > Emerging Creatives Day
Katanya Raby
Katanya Raby is an urban planner, artist, and activist with over ten years of professional experience in the non-profit, government, and corporate sectors. Katanya focuses on equitable planning with communities in Chicago. She serves as the At-Large Officer with the American Planning Association Illinois Chapter, is a board member of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, serves as the chair of Chicago Transit Authority’s Citizens Advisory Board, and is a member of Lambda Alpha Land Economics Society. She is an alum of the Chicago United for Equity Fellowship, co-founder and former president of Society of Black Urban Planners at UIC, and is founder of the Al Raby Foundation. She is an alum of AmeriCorps VISTA and City Year Chicago. Katanya is committed to planning for equity, providing service to underserved communities, and encouraging youth to consider their roles in the future of their own communities.
Session > Emerging Creatives Day
CAB Youth Council
Mobile Makers and the Chicago Architecture Biennial have teamed up to provide free, educational, and creative programming to learners of all ages as a way to promote active exploration of the built environment and encourage audiences to see architecture and design as tools for change.
The CAB Youth Council is a platform for youth voices to help shape CAB’s work and the larger cultural and architecture/design landscape of the city while exposing participants to professional pathways and relationships. CAB Youth Council students will present the work they completed in the Spring of 2023, including an installation that will be presented at the Chicago Cultural Center during the 5th edition of CAB.
Session > CAB Youth Council Presentation
Amanda Williams
Amanda Williams is a visual artist who trained as an architect. Her creative practice employs color as an operative means for drawing attention to the complex ways race informs how we assign value to the spaces we occupy. Williams's installations, sculptures, paintings, and works on paper seek to inspire new ways of looking at the familiar and, in the process, raise questions about the inequitable state of urban space and ownership in America. Her breakthrough series, Color(ed) Theory, has been named by the New York Times one of the 25 most significant works of postwar architecture in the world. Amanda has exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Hammer Museum to name a few. Her work is in several permanent collections including the MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian. Williams has been widely recognized, most recently being named a 2022 MacArthur Fellow. She lives and works in Chicago.
Session > Chicago Histories,
Chicago Futures
Jerald Cooper
Jerald Cooper is a storyteller, cultural archivist, and designer whose research and work focus on the intersection between Black culture and modernism. He is the Founder of LA-based studio Things We’ve Made (TWM), an impact-minded collective that builds and works with innovative brands through culture, music, architecture and art. He is also the owner of Hood Century where he catalogs and curates Mid-century designs significant to Black people, places, and stories.
Jerald has been featured in the New York Times, Dwell, Architectural Digest, Vogue, and more.
Session > Featured Speaker:
Jerald Cooper
Kazuki Guzmán
Kazuki Guzmán is a Chicago-based designer who creates domestic objects and furniture. Guzmán’s current work focuses on mingei, Japanese folk-crafts, as a methodology for an appreciation of handmade culture and sustainable design. Guzmán aims to expand the accessibility and vocabulary of traditional crafts and create new possibilities for collaboration among makers of all fields.
Guzmán has been featured in many publications including Dwell, Newcity Magazine, and Designboom.
Session > Emerging Creatives Day
Ciera Alyse McKissick
Ciera Alyse McKissick is an independent writer, curator, cultural producer, and the founder of AMFM, an organization whose mission is to promote emerging artists. She created AMFM as an independent study project in 2009. Her work involves collaboration through supporting Black and brown artists, local arts organizations, and seeks to stimulate community engagement that's driven by inclusivity, accessibility, intention, and care. She is also the Public Programs Manager at the Hyde Park Art Center. Ciera has been featured in Artsy, Terremoto MX, Newcity, Sixty Inches From Center, Saatchi Art, ABC 7 Chicago, The Chicago Tribune, WGN, WTTW, Chicago Reader, the Sun Times, South Side Weekly, Afropunk, and more.
Session > Chicago Histories,
Chicago Futures
Rafael Robles
Rafa Robles is the co-founder and director of Duo, an innovation studio/lab that works to create built environment innovations for the benefit of society, Duo partners with organizations of all types through design, strategy, and innovation services, and by launching ethical real estate development and related ventures. Duo’s multicontextual design approach investigates and activates knowledge, wisdom, and beauty across a generative and evaluative process that explores Norm/Form-making. Their studio applies the lenses of economics, ecology, technology, culture, and ethics to enrich their practice and ensure that their innovations provide a societal benefit.
Session > Alternative Practice
Adrienne Brown
Adrienne Brown is an Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Race Diaspora and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago and the Director of Arts + Public Life, a hub for artistic exploration, expression and exchange that centers people of color and fosters neighborhood vibrancy. She is the co-editor with Valerie Smith of the volume Race and Real Estate (2015), and the author of The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race, winner of the 2018 First Book Prize from the Modernist Studies Association, and The Residential is Racial: A Perceptual History of Mass Homeownership, out with Stanford University Press next year.
Session > Chicago Histories,
Chicago Futures
Dave Pabellon
Dave Pabellon is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Columbia College Chicago and a design consultant under the moniker It Is Just Dave LLC, focusing on partnerships with cultural institutions, contemporary artists, and activist organizations.
Prior to Columbia, Pabellon held the role of senior designer at the award-winning studio Faust Associates. In addition to his professional and academic practice, Pabellon is a Core Organizer for the Design As Protest (DAP) Collective and serves on the Mobile Makers board.
Session > Reinventing Design Education
Elsa Ponce
Elsa Ponce is a Mexican-born architect, interdisciplinary designer, and educator based in Brooklyn. She leads Studio Elsa Ponce, a research-based design practice that challenges hegemonic processes toward spatial justice and community access. Elsa’s research and design work has been awarded support from NYSCA, Mexico's Endowment of the Arts, Art Omi, and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation. Elsa is a Cohort fellow at NEW INC, the first museum-led cultural incubator and teaches at the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. She is a co-founder of WIP Collaborative, a shared feminist practice of seven designers working on projects that engage community and the public realm. In her work and teaching, Elsa speculates on the borders of traditionally defined disciplines and the power of mutual action to connect people with their environment and each other.
Session > Alternative Practice
Davey Friday
Davey Friday is a 28-year-old designer from the South Side of Chicago. Davey has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Roosevelt University, and a Master of Architecture and Master of Landscape Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Davey is currently an Urban Designer at Perkins and Will, tackling challenges in the urban fabric around the country. He’s also a practicing multidisciplinary artist and has participated in several gallery exhibitions over the years.
Davey is interested in using design to create pleasurable experiences and equitable spaces. When addressing design problems, he believes having a firm understanding of the root conditions is the most vital part of executing a successful solution and that positive and negative consequences of a design intervention must be considered.