What does it mean to design spaces for — and of— solidarity? How does solidarity inform design, and how can design enable new forms of solidarity to emerge? How can design visibilize and stabilize the complex economies that comprise our everyday lives?
In their new book, Design & Solidarity, (Columbia University Press), artist Marisa Morán Jahn (Director, Parsons’ Integrated Design Program) and architect Rafi Segal (Director, MIT SMArchS Urbanism Program) explore the power of design, art, and architecture in shaping emergent forms of mutualism, fulfilling their promise of solidarity, and ensuring that these values endure. Join us for a lively conversation with the authors and leading thinkers and designers:
Authors Rafi Segal, Architect; MIT and Marisa Morán Jahn, Artist; Parsons/The New School
In conversation with Michael Hardt, Political Philosopher; Co-Author, Empire
And Adelita Husni Bey, Artist; Greg Lindsay, Fellow, MIT Future Urban Collectives; Partner & Partners.
Music by Sam Mejias, Musician; Parsons/The New School.
Catering by Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center.
Remarks by Carin Kuoni, Director, and Eriola Pira, Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School; Cynthia Jaramillo Lawson, Dean, School of Design Strategies; Koray Caliskan, Economic Sociologist, Co-Director, MS Strategic Design and Management.
Tuesday, March 7
6:00 - 7:30 with a book launch dance party to follow!
63 Fifth Avenue – The University Center
Starr Foundation Hall - UL102
The Stephan Weiss Lecture Series is made possible by an endowment established by the Karan-Weiss Foundation, Donna Karan, Gabrielle Karan, Corey Weiss, and Lisa Weiss.
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Michael Hardt is a political philosopher and literary theorist whose writings explore the new forms of domination in the contemporary world as well as the social movements and other forces of liberation that resist them. In the Empire trilogy — Empire (2000), Multitude (2004), and Commonwealth(2009) — he and Antonio Negri investigate the political, legal, economic, and social aspects of globalization. They also study the political and economic alternatives that could lead to a more democratic world. Their pamphlet Declaration (2012) attempts to articulate the significance of the encampments and occupations that began in 2011, from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, and to recognize the primary challenges faced by emerging democratic social movements today. Michael Hardt is a professor of literature at Duke University and a professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School (EGS).
An artist of Ecuadorian and Chinese descent, Marisa Morán Jahn’s works redistribute power, “exemplifying the possibilities of art as social practice” (ArtForum). Codesigned with new immigrants and working families, Jahn’s public artwork, civic media tools, installations, films, architectural and urban-scale collaborations have engaged millions via the United Nations, Tribeca Film Festival, Obama’s White House, and Venice Biennale of Architecture. She is a Sundance and Creative Capital grantee, a Senior Researcher at MIT (her alma mater), artist in residence at The National Public Housing Museum, and the Director of Integrated Design at Parsons/The New School. With Rafi Segal, Jahn co-founded Carehaus, the U.S.’s first care-based co-housing project (carehaus.net). marisajahn.com
Rafi Segal is an architect and Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at MIT. His work involves design and research on the architectural, urban and regional scale, currently focused on how emerging notions of collectivity can impact the design of buildings and cities. Segal directs Future Urban Collectives, a new design-research lab at MIT that explores the relation between digital platforms and physical communities asking how architecture and urbanism can support and scale cohabitation, coproduction, and coexistence. Segal has exhibited his work at venues including Storefront for Art and Architecture; KunstWerk, Berlin; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Venice Biennale of Architecture; Museum of Modern Art; and the Hong Kong/Shenzhen Urbanism Biennale. He holds a PhD from Princeton University and a M.Sc and B.Arch from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. rafisegal.com/
Born in Milan, Italian-Libyan Adelita Husni Bey is an artist and pedagogue invested in anarcho-collectivism, theater, and critical legal studies. She organizes workshops and produces publications, broadcasts, and exhibition work using non-competitive pedagogical models through the framework of contemporary art. Involving activists, architects, jurists, schoolchildren, spoken-word poets, actors, urbanists, physical therapists, students, and teachers, her work consists of making sites in which to practice collectively. Her work was part of the Italian pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, Venice, 2017, and her most recent solo exhibition was Maktspill, Kunsthall Bergen, 2020. She has participated in Trainings for the Not Yet, BAK, Utrecht, 2020, Being: New Photography 2018, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018; Dreamlands, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2016; The Eighth Climate, 11th Gwangju Biennale, 2015; Really Useful Knowledge, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, 2014. She is a 2020–2022 Vera List Center Fellow.
Greg Lindsay is a generalist, urbanist, futurist, and speaker. He is a 2022-2023 urban tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, where he leads The Metaverse Metropolis — a new initiative exploring the implications of augmented reality at urban scale. He is also the chief communications officer at Climate Alpha, an AI-driven location-analysis platform steering investment toward climate adaptation and more resilient regions; a senior fellow of MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, and a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative.
A multi-instrumentalist, sound designer and multimedia producer, Sam Mejias (he/him) is Associate Professor of Social Justice and Community Engagement in the School of Design Strategies, and a Visiting Fellow at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Working primarily as an ethnographer, Sam's research explores the cultural politics of social justice and civic engagement in the US, Europe and the Middle East. His projects investigate how design, discourse and communication influence the promotion of critical learning, equity, and civic engagement in the lives of young people in formal and informal spaces.
Partner & Partners is a worker-owned design practice focusing on web, print, and identity work with clients and collaborators in archives, local government, art, and activism. Formed in 2013, Partner & Partners consciously seeks projects that promote social and economic justice, and prioritizes groups with actionable visions for a just future.
The Street Vendor Project is a membership-based project with more than 1,800 active vendor members who are working together to create a vendors’ movement for permanent change. We reach out to NYC’s 10,000 vendors in the streets and storage garages and teach them about their legal rights and responsibilities. We hold meetings where we plan collective actions for getting our voices heard. We publish reports and file lawsuits to raise public awareness about vendors and the enormous contribution they make to our city. Finally, we help vendors grow their businesses by linking them with small business training and loans. The Street Vendor Project is part of the Urban Justice Center, a non-profit organization that provides legal representation and advocacy to various marginalized groups of New Yorkers.
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An artist of Ecuadorian and Chinese descent, Marisa Morán Jahn’s works redistribute power, “exemplifying the possibilities of art as social practice” (ArtForum). Codesigned with new immigrants and working families, Jahn’s public artwork, civic media tools, installations, films, architectural and urban-scale collaborations have engaged millions via the United Nations, Tribeca Film Festival, Obama’s White House, and Venice Biennale of Architecture. She is a Sundance and Creative Capital grantee, a Senior Researcher at MIT (her alma mater), artist in residence at The National Public Housing Museum, and the Director of Integrated Design at Parsons/The New School. With Rafi Segal, Jahn co-founded Carehaus, the U.S.’s first care-based co-housing project (carehaus.net). marisajahn.com | Instagram and Twitter: @marisa_jahn
