Reverberations
Lineages in Design History

Reverberations will transform the gallery into an expansive educational space, reimagining design history to feature Indigenous, Black, and People of Color (IBPOC) designers and cultural figures. With a dazzling assemblage of historical and contemporary works of art and design by over fifty artists, Reverberations questions the narrative of design tradition as a single dominant line. Reflecting on rich ancestries that reverberate across epochs, alphabets and graphic languages transmit contours of wisdom across cultures. Multidimensional maps reveal layers of experience and counter colonial flattening and erasures. Visual strategies deployed by Black designers are reinforced as motifs in present-day avant-garde data visualizations. And intricate Indigenous traditions of beadwork and textile art weave ancestral knowledge into the future.

Reverberations is curated by Brian Johnson and Silas Munro with the advice of curatorial advisors Randa Hadi, Lisa Maione, and Ramon Tejada. The exhibition is inspired by  BIPOC Design History, a series of courses facilitated by the design studio Polymode. Beginning online in 2021, these collaborative courses created a one-room schoolhouse informed by generations of design practitioners, an experiment in expanding access to learning while inspiring future generations.

Contributors to the exhibition include: Akwesasne Notes, Munirah AlShami, Gail Anderson, BIPOC Design History with Edgar Casarin, Hone Bailey, MJ Balvanera, Alan Bell, Pedro Bell, Dina Benbrahim, Pilar Castillo, Melissa Cody, Shannon Doronio Chavez, Gráfica Latina (José Menéndez & Tatiana Gómez), Schessa Garbutt, Jeffrey Gibson, Tony Gonyea, Nathan P. Jackson, Louise E. Jefferson, Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. with David Hernaiz & Zdravko Toic, Jon Key, Luba People, Jacob Lawrence, Yoon Soo Lee, Beatriz Lozano, Mbuti People, Saki Mafundikwa, Wael Morcos, Ziddi Msangi, Nontsikelelo Mutiti & Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Ella Myers, Shiva Nallaperumal & Juhi Vishnani, Onaman Collective (Christi Belcourt & Isaac Murdoch), Monique Ortman, Lívia Perez, Jackson Polys, Shraddha Ramani & William Villalongo, Roberto Rodriguez, Jennifer Sapiel Neptune, Theresa Secord, Bahia Shehab, Sarah Sockbeson, Mary Sully, Ramon Tejada & Carlos Avila, Pedro “Monky” Tolomeo Rojas Meza, Madeline Tomer Shay, Anna Tsouhlarakis, Dori Tunstall, Kelly Walters, Ben Warner, Lauren Williams, Alisha B Wormsley, Vocal Type, Tadanori Yokoo, and Vanessa Zúñiga Tinizaray.