DAP Collective: YOU ARE A(NTI)RACIST
March 10 - April 21, 2022
YOU ARE A(NTI)RACIST showcases the labor, processes, and love behind the multidimensional projects of Design As Protest Collective(DAP).
Challenge Power. Dismantle Systems. Design a Just World.
DAP Collective was established in the wake of massive losses of life in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. Following the National Call on June 3, 2020, DAP began to grow through weekly BIPOC organizer calls on Zoom, fractalizing into myriad collaborations fueled by long-running injustices in the built environment. YOU ARE A(NTI)RACIST celebrates DAP’s projects and materializes the labor and love behind the work. Projects in the show reframe and reclaim design as a tool for protest and collective liberation rather than violence and oppression. In manifesting DAP’s complex virtual relationships and organizing in physical forms, the show reveals the transformative capacity of collaborative design processes that center justice, joy, and community care. Through an ethos of “bias toward action,” YOU ARE A(NTI)RACIST is a call to action for all designers to interrogate their role in anti-racist design.
Design As Protest (DAP) is a collective of designers mobilizing strategies to dismantle the privilege and power structures that use architecture and design as tools of oppression. Co-organized by BIPOC designers, we exist to hold our profession accountable in reversing the violence and injustice that architecture, design, and urban planning practices have inflicted upon Black people and communities. Design As Protest champions the radical vision of racial, social, and cultural reparation through the process and outcomes of design.
DAP collective members include: Noor ul Ain, Bangseh Akuchu, Aiysha Alsane, Venesa Alicea-Chuqui, Marwa Al-Saqqar, Sophia Austrins, Kami Beckford, Jelisa Blumberg, Josh Budiongan, Carmen Chee, Elizabeth Chen, Sophie Weston Chien, Kiki Cooper, Ann Dang, Deena Darby, Siboney Díaz-Sánchez, Simone Delaney, Ebony Dumas, Arturo Fuentes-Ortiz, Steph Garcia, Alexa Gonzalez, Mel Gross, Sarah Gunawan, Karim "Kimo" Hassanein, Navjot Heer Catherine D. Hernández, Taylor Holloway, A.L. Hu, christin hu, Kimberly Jackson, Seema Kairam, Chaz Kern, Fauzia Khanani, Angela King, Gloria Lau, Bryan C Lee Jr., Michelle Lin-Luse, Jackie Santa Lucia, Amanda M., Jan Martin, V. Mitch McEwen, Alexandra Mei, My-Anh Nguyen, Byron Nicholas, De Nichols, Ava Omidvar, Dave Pabellon, Farmer Ama Peyman, Adriana Barcenas Rojas, Alexander Patricio Salazar, Melisa Betts Sanders, Veena Shah, Preeti Sodhi, Ray Stubblefield, Emily Waldinger, Sharonda Whatley, Amanda Williams, Bz Zhang, and Jati Zunaibi
Accompanying YOU ARE A(NTI)RACIST is an exhibition of Columbia College Chiago students entitled DAP Demands Interpreted. This show is comprised of work created by Graphic Design IV students as a response to DAP’s Design Justice Demands.
DAP Demands Interpreted participants include: Sam Bochnia, Gabriela Brockman, Richard Guzman, Yonghyun Kim, Teddi Mullins, Joy Padua, Jess Pistone, Rosie Ruiz, Daniela Schwab, Ayesha Shaikh, Hannah Tonn, Ally Vonderheide, and Mariusz Walus
YOU ARE A(NTI)RACIST is organized by the DAP Collective
Programming
Friday, April 8, 3 p.m., virtual event
DAP Speaks with Dave Pabellon
De Nichols in conversation with Dave Pabellon about the collaborative development of the DAP YOU ARE A(NTI) RACIST Exhibition, cross-disciplinary design activism, and how our city was built for this. This virtual event will be live on the DAP Collective’s Instagram page- designisprotest
Friday, April 15, 11 a.m., virtual event
DAP Speaks w/ Adriana Barcenas and A.L. Hu De Nichols in conversation with Adriana Barcenas and A.L. Hu about the Design As Protest Studio, Design Justice, and why zines. This virtual event will be live on the DAP Collective’s Instagram page- designisprotest
Friday, April 15, 12:30–2:30 p.m., Glass Curtain Gallery
YOU ARE A(NTI) RACIST Zine Workshop, organized by Adrian Barcenas and A.L. Hu.
DAP Core Organizers invites students to engage with our principles of design justice through the medium of the zine format. The workshop will guide participants through a co-creation process to demonstrate and develop their own visual language for communicating ideas around the Design Justice and DAP's Design Justice Demands. Participants will be guided through a series of prompts via a zine template and use a graphic kit that includes our design justice word bank and visual elements for collaging. The intent of the workshop is to arrive at new interpretations that build upon DAP’s pre-existing work, which highlights the collaborative nature of the DAP collective and introduces participants to a low-barrier tool for visual communication.
Register for this event here.
Saturday, April 16, 12:30–4 p.m., Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Avenue
Anti-Racist Design Justice Index Workshop, organized by Taylor Holloway and Bryan C. Lee Jr.
This interactive workshop led by DAP Organizers invites and recruits architecture and design professionals (practices, organizations, academia, and planners [local gov]) to engage with the DAP Anti-Racist Design Justice Index (ARDJI, or The Index) as a tool to reflect, interrogate, and improve their Anti-Racist work. The workshop will begin with participants conducting a self-assessment, bringing to light bias, blind spots, and misunderstandings. That information will then become fodder that workshop facilitators can use to direct toward certain sections of The Index. Once calibrated, facilitators and participants will collectively game plan means of implementation and set goals towards liberation.
Register for this event here.
This project is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency with the National Endowment for the Arts, and a grant from the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. At Columbia College Chicago. This project was made possible with curatorial assistance by Dave Pabellon
Glass Curtain Gallery–Columbia College Chicago
1104 S Wabash Ave, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60605
Gallery Hours: Monday– Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
Thursday, 9 a.m.–7 p.m.
Please note: For entry into DEPS spaces, masks as well as proof of vaccination or proof of a negative Covid test within the last 72 hours are required.
