Untitled (Speech/Crowd) #3 — Glenn Ligon
ART & DESIGN
HELPFUL LINKS
Where Are The Black Designers is an initiative which aims to give a platform to creatives of color. By connecting designers, educators, and creative leaders we hope to start a dialogue about change in and out of the design industry.
Design Guild for Justice is a group of volunteer designers and creatives that helps cause leaders and organizations design graphics, logos, websites, artwork, and other creative work.
Design as Protest Listserv is a Black-led organizing effort, in solidarity with the movement for Black Lives, to marshall creative design strategies to dismantle the privilege and powers structures that use architecture and design as a tool of oppression.
Blacks who Design highlights all of the inspiring Black designers in the industry. The goal is to inspire new designers, encourage people to diversify their feeds, and discover amazing individuals to join your team.
Allied Media Project is a network of people and projects, rooted in Detroit and connected to hundreds of other places across the globe, committed to cultivating media for liberation.
People of Craft is a growing showcase of creatives of color and their craft in design, advertising, tech, illustration, lettering, art, and more. It’s time to redefine what a creative looks like.
Revision Path is an award-winning weekly showcase of Black designers, developers, and digital creatives from all over the world. Through in-depth interviews, you’ll learn about their work, their goals, and what inspires them as creative individuals.
mandatory reading
BOOKS
Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy by Robert F. Thompson — Beloved by artists and art historians alike, this landmark text changed the study and understanding of African and Black art history.
Whitewalling: Art, Race & Protest in 3 Acts by Aruna D’Souza lays bare how the art world―no less than the country at large―has persistently struggled with the politics of race, and the ways this struggle has influenced how museums, curators and artists wrestle with notions of free speech and the specter of censorship.
Saturation: Race, Art, and the Circulation of Value edited by C. Riley Snorton and Hentyle Yapp — Controversies involving race and the art world are often discussed in terms of diversity and representation — as if having the right representative from a larger plurality of embodied difference would absolve art institutions from historic forms of exclusion. This book offers another approach, taking into account not only questions of racial representation but also issues of structural change and the redistribution of resources. In essays, conversations, discussions, and artist portfolios, contributors consider how racialization, globalization, and the production and consumption of art converge in the art market, engaging such topics as racial capitalism, the aesthetics of colonialism, and disability cultures
To Describe a Life: Notes from the Intersection of Art and Race Terror by Darby English By turns historical, critical, and personal, this book examines the use of art—and love—as a resource amid the recent wave of shootings by American police of innocent black women and men. Darby English attends to a cluster of artworks created in or for our tumultuous present that address themes of racial violence and representation idiosyncratically, neither offering solutions nor accommodating shallow narratives about difference.
EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art by Kellie Jones — Featuring selections of her writings from the past twenty years, EyeMinded reveals Jones’s role in bringing attention to the work of African American, African, Latin American, and women artists who have challenged established art practices.
The Little Book of Design Research Ethics aims to provide practical guidance we can use in the work we do every day. This book is a guide on how to seek and share insights about people’s lives in an ethical way.
Design Justice by Sasha Costanza-Chock — What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? Design Justice is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims explicitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world.
Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech by Sara Wachter-Boettcher demystifies the tech industry, leaving those of us on the other side of the screen better prepared to make informed choices about the services we use — and to demand more from the companies behind them.
Cross Cultural Design by Senongo Akpem shares a clear and accessible methodology for designing across cultures: from performing socially conscious research, to building culturally responsive experiences, to developing meaningful internationalization and localization approaches.
PDF: Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks. Full of passion and politics, Teaching to Transgress combines a practical knowledge of the classroom with a deeply felt connection to the world of emotions and feelings. This is the rare book about teachers and students that dares to raise questions about eros and rage, grief and reconciliation, and the future of teaching itself.
ARTICLES
The Topic Is Race; the Art Is Fearless by Holland Cotter in The New York Times
Art That Confronts and Challenges Racism: Start Here — The New York Times
The Design Community Must Not Stay Silent by Harrison Wheeler on Medium and UX Collective
The US has a big racism problem and the art world is not helping by Margaret Carrigan
What Does It Mean to Decolonize Design? by Anoushka Khandwala in AIGA’s Eye on Design
Design Thinking is a Rebrand for White Supremacy by Darin Buzon on Medium
Of course technology perpetuates racism. It was designed that way. by Charlton McIlwain in MIT Technology Review
Typography as A Radical Act by Silas Munro in AIGA’s Eye on Design
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
BOOKS
Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need by Sasha Costanza-Chock — An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival.
Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating by Maura Reilly — Arranged in thematic sections focusing on feminism, race, and sexuality, Curatorial Activism examines and illustrates pioneering examples of exhibitions that have broken down boundaries and demonstrated that new approaches are possible, from Linda Nochlin's "Women Artists" at LACMA in the mid-1970s to Jean-Hubert Martin's "Carambolages" in 2016 at the Grand Palais in Paris.
How Art Can Be Thought: A Handbook for Change by Allan deSouza — What terms do we use to describe and evaluate art, and how do we judge if art is good, and if it is for the social good? Unpacking how art functions as politicized culture within a global industry, deSouza investigates such questions and the popular terminology through which art is discussed, valued, and taught.
Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Designing with Accessibility in Mind by Regine M Gilbert — As a creator in the modern digital era, your aim should be to make products that are inclusive of all people. Technology has, overall, increased connection and information equality around the world. To continue its impact, access and usability of such technology must be made a priority, and there is no better place to get started than Inclusive Design for a Digital World.
Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin — From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce White supremacy and deepen social inequity.
Field Guide: Equity Centered Community Design by Creative Reaction Lab. Did you know that you’re a designer whether you’ve studied within a design field or not? As a teacher, nurse, politician, graphic designer, etc., your “designs” impact others. How can we make sure that you’re designing inclusive and equitable outcomes for all — no matter how big or small the decision?
ARTICLES
An interview with Kerry James Marshall: Challenging racism in art history by Alastair Sooke in the BBC
Black Lives Matter is Not a Design Challenge by Schessa Garbutt on Medium
Black Bodies, White Cubes: The Problem With Contemporary Art’s Appropriation of Race by Taylor Renee Aldrige in ARTnews
Design Thinking Is Fundamentally Conservative and Preserves the Status Quo by Natasha Iskander in Harvard Business Review
Black Designers: Missing in Action by Cheryl D. Miller in Print Mag
Speech recognition technology is racist by Thomas Macaulay in The Next Web
What is Blind Hiring? by Kate Glazebrook on Applied
Black Lives Matter: How the Tech Community Can Provide Support by Jennifer Riggins in The New Stack
Dismantling White Supremacy Culture Within AIGA by George Aye on Medium
Design Leadership: Now What? by Jennifer Rittner
How to Begin Designing for Diversity by Project Inkblot on The Creative Independent
