![]() Now, House says, she can add the designers of “To Illuminate Abundance” to that canon of graphic design. House says her mentor during college, associate professor of graphic design Christopher Houltberg, even adapted the curriculum with some of her research findings. That exhibition also traveled to First Avenue and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. ![]() That research project culminated in a 2018 Augsburg exhibition featuring nine Black graphic designers from the 20th century, including Emory Douglas, the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers, and Dorothy Hayes, who House says was a mentor to the next generation of designers. “So, I just imagine Black women and femmes are right down there, and just not going to get the credit that we deserve in those spaces. And I was looking specifically at Black designers, and they were almost never credited,” House said at the artist talk. “When I was doing some research on the history of Black graphic designers, one thing that I found was it was very rarely that designers, in general, were credited for things. She was a graphic design student at the time and says that she couldn’t name one Black graphic designer. It is part of her ongoing research project, “Where Are All the Black Designers?”, which she started as an undergraduate at Augsburg a few years go. There is another reason, House says, for an art exhibition featuring graphic designers. On a salvaged lightbox sign, Sharp painted the monster’s words from Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”: “Beware for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” Moses chose to create her own quote, “Occupy Space with Glory,” to take up more space, she says. Jackson, for one, chose an excerpt from science fiction author Octavia Butler: “Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe,” painted across layered pieces of wood in a cosmic installation. “But each of the artists kind of started asking me individually, do you mind if I explore something else?”įox and House prompted the group to create an artwork to illuminate a meaningful text or quote. “I really expected it to be like a majority poster show, you know, just like thinking what a typical designer would do,” says House, explaining that designers usually have to create for a client, who is not typically themselves. ![]() The two galleries overflow with colors and patterns at a large scale. ![]() With “To Illuminate Abundance,” the design partners wanted to collectively imagine a sort of Afrofuturist space where Black women and femmes can celebrate a life beyond surviving and depictions of trauma.Īlong with Moses, House and Fox, designers Ashley Koudou, Kelsi Sharp, Leeya Rose Jackson, Marcia Rowe, Olivia Anizor and Sabrina Peitz created everything from digitally designed photographic memory quilts and murals inspired by playlists curated for healing to a tufted carpet installation celebrating curly hair. “It was basically to amplify voices of the Black community and be able to share and reach an audience for the Black community that they normally don't have access to, or aren't aware of, the opportunities because they're not handed to them,” Fox says. ![]() They say the number, 13.4, comes from a recent study that found that Black people make up 13.4 percent of the U.S. It is a production of their 13.4 Collective, led and made up by Black artists and designers. Here, the curators say, “femme” refers to a person whose gender expression is considered feminine.Ĭo-curators and participating artists Olivia House and Silent Fox have been planning this show for more than a year. Moses is one of nine local Black women and femme designers in the exhibition “To Illuminate Abundance” at Augsburg’s Gage and Christensen galleries through March 24. ![]()
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