Womxn to the Front: Design, Activism, and Lessons from the Creative Frontlines

*This event is occurring as a live webinar. Registrants will be emailed a link to access the program; please continue to register.*

In this Archtober lecture, design strategist and activist De Nichols will share insights and a collective call-to-action for womxn designers to further activate our vision, voice, and power during the current moments of economic, public health, and racial crises facing the U.S. With consideration of the 100 years since Women’s Suffrage, the disenfranchisement of Black women that continued through the Civil Rights era, the leadership of womxn in recent uprisings, and the possibility of the nation’s first woman of color as Vice President, remarks will provide celebration, critique, and critical insights that uplift the legacies of womxn’s leadership in social movement development. De will draw from her experiences as an arts organizer during the 2014 Ferguson Uprising, as well the women leadership that grounds much of the national Design as Protest efforts she co-leads. Participants will leave with concrete action steps they can take immediately within their professional spaces and social networks, and they will be equipped with insights and resources to further develop their creative power for change.

Speaker:
De Nichols, Designer, Activist, Social Entrepreneur, Lecturer

Moderator:
Kavyashri Cherala, Associate AIA, LEED AP BD+C , AIANY Women in Architecture Committee, Media Communications

About the speakers:

De Nichols is a designer, activist, social entrepreneur, and lecturer addressing racial inequities within the built environment through the production of interactive art experiences, digital media, and social interventions. Nichols is a 2020 Transnational Fellow with Monument Lab and serves as the Principal of Design & Social Practice at Civic Creatives in St. Louis, MO. Through multimedia artwork and lectures, she has championed the power of design and storytelling to inspire and equip change-makers to protest social injustices and civic design solutions for progressive change across American communities. Her efforts as an arts organizer in the 2014 Ferguson Uprising catapulted her to the international spotlight, with the artwork Mirror Casket (2014), which was collected by the Smithsonian Institute. Since 2011, Nichols has been deemed as a national Ideas that Matter recipient, a two-time Clinton Global Initiative innovator, and a St. Louis Visionary recipient for her community impact in the arts. Nichols holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in communications design from Washington University in St. Louis and earned her Master of Social Work specialization in social entrepreneurship from its Brown School of Social Work. She additionally is a Loeb Fellow of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Citizen Artist Fellow of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, and a 2018 Artist Fellow with the Regional Arts Commission in St. Louis, MO.

Kavyashri Cherala is an Architectural Designer and Researcher based in Brooklyn, New York. She serves as a consultant with the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes and the RETI (Resilience, Education, Training and Innovation) Center to create equitable public space in New York City neighborhoods that are disproportionately affected by urban heat. Working with local community organizations, she helps manage the design and implementation of prototypes for street cooling and shading, and contributes to public programming in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Previously, Cherala worked at Robert A.M. Stern Architects in New York City, where she was involved in the design of a variety of planning, institutional and commercial projects. She served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and also worked at architecture firms in Mumbai and Goa in India. Kavya earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Pune and her Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. She is a LEED Accredited Professional, and serves as the Media Communication Manager for the New York Chapter’s Women in Architecture Committee. Cherala is a Licensed Architect in India.