Program Announcement: Deem Symposium 02
Dear friends,
We’re writing to invite you to join us this spring for Deem’s second live symposium: Designing for Dignity 02: A Convening of Possibilities.
In continuation with last year’s tremendous inaugural gathering, this hybrid in-person/online event will be co-hosted by the MCA Chicago on May 17, 18, and 19, 2024.
We will expand on the guiding premise of dignity as the intrinsic lens for liberatory design practices with two days of presentations and conversations, as well as interactive workshops and on-site experiences happening both at the museum and throughout the city of Chicago. You can find the specifics of our program (so far!) below.
We’re once again bringing together innovative and acclaimed artists, designers, scholars, and organizers to reflect on a range of design-related topics, disciplines, methodologies, and agendas. We will also be hosting our Reference Room, located at the MCA, to provide a public gathering space in which anyone can encounter and experience reading materials that have inspired our five print issues.
Tickets for in-person and virtual attendance go on sale April 10 on the MCA’s website.
If you joined us last year, you know how special this event was, and we can’t wait to do it again. We very much hope to see you there.
—the Deem team
FRIDAY MAY 17
Reference Room Opens
Conversation
Artist and designer Norman Teague and International Interior Design Association Executive Vice President and CEO Cheryl S. Durst will exchange ideas around ontologies of beauty within the design industry, and how to build practical and theoretical frameworks for more liberated aesthetic languages. This intimate conversation to kickoff our program will be moderated by Deem cofounder Marquise Stillwell.
SATURDAY MAY 18
Keynote
Tricia Hersey—the visionary founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization that uplifts rest as a form of resistance—will share an immersive daydreaming activation while exploring the power of designing rest as a practice of love, liberation, and community care.
Conversation
Writer, entrepreneur, and philanthropic innovator Rachel Cargle, multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator Andrea Yarbrough, and multidisciplinary artist and author Jezz Chung, with moderation from curator and arts administrator Marguerite Wynter, will speak on designing for and through healing, and the vital modalities of restoration and transformation.
Expansive Practice Presentation
How can video games inspire positive change in a world facing uncertain futures? Creative technologist, artist, and educator Ami Mehta will explore how game design, storytelling, and social impact can intersect to address issues across representation, climate change, cultural preservation, and community collaboration.
Expansive Practice Presentation
Independent curator, gallerist, and space-shifter Ciera Alyse McKissick will share how she has built platforms, connections, and partnerships that center the needs of artists and communities. Expanding on the intersections of interdisciplinary art practices, journalism, and public engagement, she will illustrate how her various projects have helped shape the ways that audiences interact with, view, and experience art in unconventional ways.
Conversation
Frankie Knuckles Foundation Founder, President, and Executive Director Frederick Dunson, DJ, producer, remixer, and music publisher DJ Lady D, and designer and curator Joseph Henry, with moderation from Deem cofounder and creative director Nu Goteh, will examine the dynamic relationship between sound and spatial practices, with particular attention to Chicago’s music culture history.
Endnote
In her talk, “Decolonizing Design: Designing for Liberatory Joy,” Dr. Dori Tunstall will close the day by addressing two aspects of decolonizing design: putting Indigenous first and dismantling the racist bias in the European modernist project in design.
SUNDAY MAY 19
Reference Room remains open through end of day
Stay tuned for schedule updates pertaining to workshops and site visits!