Dear friends and family,

We’re so excited that many of you will be joining us in Chicago next weekend.

There are still a few tickets left for Saturday October 25th at the MCA Chicago — if you were waiting for your sign, this is it!

We’ll also be kicking off the weekend on Friday evening with a pre-party and opening program co-hosted by Chicago Architecture Biennial and Rebuild Foundation.

Designing for Dignity 03: A Convening of Possibilities is going to be a very special weekend of hybrid in-person/online programming dedicated to expansive perspectives on liberatory design thinking, and grounded in the shared value of dignity.

We’re thrilled to be joined by these esteemed speakers—Edra Soto, Mabel O. Wilson, Theaster Gates, Duane Powell, Radha Mistry, Ghian Foreman, Andres L. Hernandez, Katherine Darnstadt, Nadia Elokdah, Cate Fox, Sruti Suryanarayanan, Marz Lovejoy, and Nu Goteh.

Gathering IRL means the world to us, and we can’t wait to rekindle the energy of the past two years. See you soon!

—the Deem team

Dear friends and family,

It is our great pleasure to invite you to Deem’s third Symposium, coming to Chicago on October 24-25, 2025.

We’ll be kicking off the weekend on the evening of Friday 10/24, with a pre-party hosted by the Chicago Architecture Biennial, followed by our opening program in partnership with Rebuild Foundation and onsite at the newly-renovated Land School.

On Saturday 10/25, the MCA Chicago will host Designing for Dignity 03: A Convening of Possibilities, which will carry forth the thematic discourse of the past two years with a full day of hybrid in-person/online programming dedicated to expansive perspectives on liberatory design thinking, and grounded in the shared value of dignity.

Through presentations, conversations, and a participatory activation, this daylong gathering will consider challenging and topical subjects through the intersecting lenses of design and social practice.

This year’s participants include Edra Soto, Mabel O. Wilson, Theaster Gates, Duane Powell, Radha Mistry, Ghian Foreman, Andres L. Hernandez, Katherine Darnstadt, Nadia Elokdah, Cate Fox, Sruti Suryanarayanan, Marz Lovejoy, and Nu Goteh.

As in the past, our program brings together deeply engaged, experimentally inclined, and intergenerational thinkers and doers across a range of lived experiences and expertise. It is our intention that the time we share will stimulate connectivity and dialogue, energized by our credence in each person's critical potential to help design the world around them.

Tickets for Saturday at the MCA are on sale here. Please note that space is limited and we expect tickets to sell out.

We cherish the opportunity to connect with our community in person and are so looking forward to the third iteration of this very special experience.

—the Deem team

Join Us in Celebrating a Multitude of Voices in Design

At Deem, our goal is to create more inclusive discourses and practices around design, and we are looking for the right partners as we scale our reach and impact. For the third year in a row, we are thrilled to expand our mission by hosting Designing for Dignity: a Convening of Possibilities, an event dedicated to bringing together diverse voices and perspectives to shape the future of design.

We need your support to make this vision a reality.

Donate Today

Ways to Contribute

• To make a One-Time Donation, click here.

• For Corporate Sponsorships, click here.

Every donation—big or small—makes a difference and is tax deductible.

Together, We Can Make a Lasting Impact

Be part of this journey to champion design for equity and innovation, and join us at our annual symposium in June 2025.

Visit our website to donate today or contact our team.

Thank you for believing in Deem’s mission to foster meaningful dialogues in the world of design.

Warm regards,
Deem Team

Dear friends,

Today we’re excited to announce the launch of “Future Feelings,” a new podcast from Deem Audio hosted by Radha Mistry (@radha_mistry).

The study, the science, and the art of predicting and preparing for the future has long been a preoccupation of humankind, and is of particular concern to designers. The stakes of our global present are especially high. We’re facing the compounding repercussions of climate change and rapidly transforming technologies alongside the catastrophic fallouts of a deeply flawed, centuries-old geopolitical system. It’s difficult even to parse the present, let alone conceive both of what might come next, and how we might exercise agency in shaping it.

Listen Now

In this six-episode series, Radha Mistry, a designer with a background that spans architecture, narrative environments, and strategic foresight, unpacks the purpose and practice of futuring, and introduces us to six venerable practitioners who approach this work in myriad ways.

Radha Mistry is the Americas Region Foresight Leader at Arup, teaches futures studies in the Master of Architecture programs at Southern California Institute of Architecture, and spends most of her time exploring the impact of emerging drivers and how they’ll change the way we design and make things in the future. She is based in Los Angeles.

Episode 01 is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and Pandora, as well as Deem Audio. Tune in twice a month to hear each unique interview with the following guests:

• Anab Jain (@anabjain)

• Asia Clarke (@wild_moon)

• Monika Bielskyte (@monikabielskyte)

• Macy Siu (@_macysiu_) and Robert Bolton (@arowbe)

• Julian Bleecker (@darthjulian)

Yours,
The Deem Team

Dear Deem Readers,

We’re delighted to share that you can now read our fifth cover interview in full at deemjournal.com.

Issue Five: “Climate Realities and Responses” is anchored by a conversation between Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (@ayanaeliza) and guest editor Mark Chambers (@growacity), which took place at Dr. Johnson’s home in Maine and was photographed by @guarionex_jr. 

Read Online

“Beyond Crisis: Finding Beauty and Purpose in the Climate Future” explores the ways in which our world must, and can, be redesigned; the role that each of us can play in insisting on this; and Dr. Johnson’s new book, “What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futurism,” which is out September 17.

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and Brooklyn native. She is co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities. She co-edited the bestselling climate anthology All We Can Save, co-founded The All We Can Save Project, and co-created the Spotify/Gimlet climate solutions podcast How to Save a Planet. Her writing has been published widely, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Scientific American. Dr. Johnson’s new book, What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futurism, comes out in September 2024.

Mark Chambers is an environmental policy leader, advocate for social justice, and licensed architect inspired by public service and lessons of collective action. He is Vice President of Partnerships at Elemental Excelerator, a nonprofit investor focused on scaling climate technologies with deep community impact. He recently served the Biden White House as Senior Director for Building Emissions and Community Resilience and was previously the Director of Sustainability for both New York City and the District of Columbia, where he led efforts to accelerate climate policy implementation in America’s largest city and the Nation’s capital. Mark lives in Harlem with his wife and two children.

In addition, we’re thrilled to announce that Deem has been chosen by the @grahamfoundation for one of their 33 grants to support projects led by organizations around the world.

These include exhibitions, publications, and other public presentations that foster the development and exchange of ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society, furthering the mission of the Graham Foundation. These projects expand understanding, methods, and platforms of contemporary architecture discourse and feature work by architects, archivists, artists, curators, designers, educators, and other professionals working with organizations worldwide in cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Nashville, Athens, New York, and Chicago.

See the full list of 2024 #grahamgrantee projects and learn more on their website: grahamfoundation.org

Thank you for continuing to support our publication and for being part of our growing community. As we build off of the excitement of the release of Issue 05, “Climate Realities and Responses,” we are thrilled to announce new opportunities to partner with us and engage with our platform.

This year, we are looking to partner with several organizations and institutions in order to expand the ways in which you can experience Deem. From the launch of two upcoming podcasts to our third in-person symposium, there will be multiple opportunities to build, learn, and reimagine with us.

Sponsor Deem

If you are in one of the following fields, we would love to have a conversation with you:

• Design 

• Tech

• Academia

• Art

• Finance

• Architecture

Connect with us by emailing Nu Goteh nu@deemjournal.com and Amy Mae Garrett amymae@deemjournal.com

Thank you,
Deem Journal

Dear Deem Community,

Last month, we presented our second live symposium: Designing for Dignity 02: A Convening of Possibilities. In continuation with 2023’s inaugural gathering, this hybrid in-person/online event was co-hosted by the MCA Chicago among other collaborating venues across the city on May 17, 18, and 19, 2024. 

We had an incredible time, got the chance to meet some of you IRL, and want to extend our appreciation to everyone who came in person or streamed virtually. 

The recordings from Friday and Saturday’s programs are now available to stream at the link below.

Watch Online

As you may know, we expanded on our guiding premise of dignity as the intrinsic lens for liberatory design practices with two days of presentations and conversations, as well as participatory workshops and on-site experiences that happened both at the museum and throughout Chicago. 

To recap what you can now find online—

On the evening of Friday May 17, the weekend kicked off at Blanc Gallery on Chicago’s South Side. Our opening act welcomed magician Nicole Cardoza, who used stage magic to open our minds to the possibilities of imagination beyond literal perception. Artist and designer Norman Teague and International Interior Design Association Executive Vice President and CEO Cheryl S. Durst then exchanged ideas around ontologies of beauty within the design industry and how to nurture more joyful and liberated aesthetic languages. This conversation was moderated by Deem cofounder Marquise Stillwell.

Our program on Saturday May 18 was hosted at the Edlis Neeson Theater at the MCA Chicago. Tricia Hersey—the visionary founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization that uplifts rest as a form of resistance—started the day with an immersive daydreaming activation while exploring the power of designing rest as a practice of love, liberation, and community care. 

A conversation between 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, spoke on designing for and through healing, and the vital modalities of restoration and transformation.

Following last year’s precedent, the afternoon features two Expansive Practice Presentations. Creative technologist, artist, and educator Ami Mehta explored how game design, storytelling, and social impact can intersect to address issues across representation, climate change, cultural preservation, and community collaboration.

Independent curator, gallerist, and space-shifter Ciera Alyse McKissick shared 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 illustrated how her various projects have helped shape the ways that audiences interact with, view, and experience art in unconventional ways.  

A conversation between 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, examined the dynamic relationship between sound and spatial practices, with particular attention to Chicago’s music culture history.

The day came to a close with “Decolonizing Design: Designing for Liberatory Joy,” a talk by Dr. Dori Tunstall that addressed two aspects of decolonizing design: putting Indigenous first and dismantling the racist bias in the European modernist project in design. 

We hope you enjoy the program as much as we did.

Yours,

The Deem Team

Dear friends,

You read that right! At long last, it’s here.

Our fifth print issue—“Climate Realities and Responses”—reflects on the biggest design challenge of all: the climate crisis and its compounding reverberations. The perils of a changing climate are not approaching—they have long since arrived. Yet there is so much left to fight for if we can come together to rethink—and redesign—the systems that connect us both to our planet and to one another, and if we can face that a stable, habitable climate on earth is no longer the presumed backdrop for our imaginations. 

On our cover, we’re overjoyed to honor marine biologist, policy expert, and writer Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson who, in conversation with guest editor Mark Chambers, helps us picture and commit to a climate future in which survival is not only possible, but an enticing invitation to which we are all called to respond. 

The contributors to our fifth issue include: Alyssa-Amor Gibbons, Antariksha Studio, Kyle Babb, Jillian Barthold, Mark Chambers, Kent Chan, Houston Cypress, Michael DeForge, Isabel Flower, Rania Ghosn, Jeff Goodell, Nu Goteh, Alice Grandoit-Šutka, Althea James, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Leen Katrib, Leila Khoury, Aidan Koch, Joycelyn Longdon, Kathy Baughman McLeod, Christopher Rey Pérez, Avinash Persaud, Naymuzzaman Prince, Guarionex Rodriguez, Jr., AbdouMaliq Simone, Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri, and Leah Thomas.

You can place your order here, as well as find the issue for sale in person (for the first time!) next weekend at our Symposium in Chicago. 

Order Issue 5

Thank you for your enduring support and community. We couldn’t do this without you.

—The Deem team

Dears readers,

We are delighted by the overwhelming response to our second Symposium announcement!

We are almost sold out and so excited to see many of you there in just over a month.

As we’ve shared, one element of this year’s program that is different from last is the addition of four workshops, co-organized with local partners at sites around the city. Each of these will offer a uniquely Chicago-specific experience and a deeper dive into understanding the practices and spaces of creative thinkers and organizers in the community.

You can find more details here and secure tickets at our Eventbrite. Capacity is limited so please plan ahead if you’d like to join us.

Get Workshop Tickets

With gratitude,

The Deem team

Friday May 17, 1–3PM
Mobile Makers 
Envisioning Liberation in Changing Communities
Mobile Makers Chicago, 1757 N Kimball Ave. Chicago, IL 60647

Join Mobile Makers for an experiential workshop about place-keeping, third space, belonging, and leveraging design to make positive change in the built environment. Participants will learn about the Humboldt Park and Logan Square communities and how developments like the rails-to-trails project “The 606” have spurred gentrification and displacement. Through a neighborhood walk, group discussions, and art making, participants will envision liberatory futures for the changing communities across our nation.

Mobile Makers, founded in 2017, is a nonprofit organization that makes design education accessible to all people. Through youth design and skill-building workshops, community engagement, public installations, and pop-ups hosted out of a retrofitted mail truck, Mobile Makers encourages conversations about positive change in the built environment.

Saturday May 18, 12–4:30pm 
Englewood Arts Collective
UnBlocking Injustice— It’s NOT A Game® 
MCA Chicago

Can reparative design solutions for harmed communities be...fun? Englewood Arts Collective invites Symposium guests to reimagine futures for the Greater Englewood neighborhood with a hands-on activity that has a hyper-local focus. Taking one residential block, centering homeowner’s needs—with vast possibilities and restrictions—EAC challenges us to co-configure a visual action plan of restorative justice, with Arts funding as the fuel. Using the actual city block they will be beautifying as part of Tonika Johnson’s restorative unBlocked Englewood project as a “gameboard,” you’re invited to explore what it’s like to ideate urban planning as an artist—with dignity for residents as your guide.

This workshop will function as a drop-by style table outside the auditorium for any Symposium attendees to visit and engage with between Saturday’s programs.

Sunday May 19, 10–11:30AM
Brandon Breaux 
Sunday Morning Reset: Meditation as a Creative Clearing Practice
Just Don, 170 N Sangamon St, Chicago, IL 60607

This workshop will begin with a brief introduction to artist Brandon Breaux’s creative practice, followed by a meditation and breathing exercise with the intention of opening up the group to the possibility of reframing how we engage with and at conferences. In order to use design as a problem solving tool, we must expand our capacities to see things differently. We live in a world that heavily relies on domain expertise, but sometimes domain expertise, or being committed to a particular view, limits our possibility to develop creative solutions. This is an exercise designed to facilitate guests’ processing of their experiences of the weekend from a different and more open place.* Coffee and pastries will be served. 

Brandon Breaux is a fine artist/designer working out of Chicago. His creative experience consists of painting, sculpture, web, video, print, and interactive projects. 

*Disclaimer from the artist: Take caution with participating in meditation practices if you have dealt with a significant amount of trauma that has yet to be addressed by a licensed therapist or counselor. 

Sunday May 19, 1–3PM
Territory NFP
Opening the Gates: Restorative Design Justice In Practice
557 N Central Ave, Chicago, IL 60644

Opening the Gates is an intergenerational gathering of designers, Austin neighborhood residents, community partners, West Side youth, and Deem Symposium guests with the goal of challenging ourselves to co-design a new community asset without gatekeeping or assumptions of insider knowledge. This workshop will center around the real opportunity to develop city-owned land at 557 N Central Avenue, and throughout the Austin community. Territory is working to create a Restorative Design Justice practice based on the free exchange of ideas among a diverse group with a mutual commitment towards acknowledging harm embedded in urban design, and using design to make our community whole again. The experience will include a presentation by members of Territory around the significance of place in this context, restorative justice strategies, and breaking bread. 

This event is part of “Creating Space” a series of on-site placemaking activations co-hosted by Root2Fruit, Austin Coming Together, Austin Experience, InspireTheNXT, Your Passion 1st and Territory. Territory is a place-based urban design studio where young people are building better futures for themselves and their communities through the hands-on practice of design. Territory is located in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. Doing projects in public spaces, young people use their lived experience, gain civic problem-solving skills, discover transformative career pathways in design, and advocate for including young people in the design and planning of Chicago. 

[Deem will provide Uber transportation to the workshop from the MCA, but guests are also welcome to get there on their own.]

Get Workshop Tickets

Dear friends,

Today’s the day! Tickets to our second Symposium are available to purchase through MCA Chicago’s website.

Consistent with last year, we are offering IRL tickets for $75, student IRL tickets $35, and virtual live stream tickets for $35.

IRL tickets guarantee physical entry to our opening conversation on Friday evening @blancgallerychicago as well as to the full day of programming at the MCA on Saturday, followed by the after party.

Please keep in mind that IRL capacity is limited and we anticipate selling out.

(On-site workshops, to be announced later this week, will be ticketed separately.)

We can’t wait to see you there!

Get Tickets

This symposium is hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, supported by our promotional partners, and part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.

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!

Hello!

LA Design Festival is happening June 22-25, and Deem is curating two conversations at Helms Bakery District on Saturday, June 24.

Our programming puts Deem co-founder and creative director Nu Goteh in dialogue with Radha Mistry, on the practice and industry of foresight, and Sekou Cooke, on the theory and emergence of Hip Hop architecture. LADF creates a place for members of the design community to explore, collaborate, and engage with one another. These conversations will consider how community interests can be prioritized in design pathways that both hypothesize the future and reexamine the past.

Admission is free.

Conversation 01: Nu Goteh + Radha Mistry
Foresight, futuring, and prospective design

Who
Nu Goteh in conversation with Radha Mistry about foresight as a practice and an industry. 

When 
Saturday June 24, 2023
3–4pm

Where
Helms Design Center 
8745 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232

About the Speaker
Radha Mistry is Arup’s Americas Foresight Leader and an Associate Principal in the Los Angeles office. Radha’s background spans architecture, narrative environments, and strategic foresight and she has been a leading voice in the development of foresight both in professional practice and academia, building foresight fluency across organizations like Autodesk, where she served as Foresight leader, and working with executive leadership to drive key foresight-led initiatives. Radha serves on the Foresight Advisory Council for the Middle East Institute and teaches as part-time faculty on the MFA Transdisciplinary Design program at The New School (Parsons) and the DesignMBA program at the California College of the Arts.

Conversation 02: Nu Goteh + Sekou Cooke
Curator Interview

Who
Nu Goteh in conversation with Sekou Cooke about Hip Hop architecture and his traveling exhibition “Close to the Edge.” 

When 
Saturday June 24, 2023
5–6pm 

Where
Helms Design Center 
8745 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232

About the Speaker
Sekou Cooke is an architect, urban designer, researcher, and curator. Born in Jamaica and based in Charlotte, North Carolina, he is the Director of the Master of Urban Design program at UNC Charlotte, the 2021/2022 Nasir Jones Hip Hop Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and a founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective.

See you there!

Sincerely,
the Deem Team

Dear Friends,

We are happy to announce the launch of “Dreaming Different,“ a new podcast that explores world-building guided by the question: How can we design the future through a neurodivergent lens?

Hosted by Jezz Chung, this six-episode series includes conversations with organizers, artists, cultural philosophers, and scientists to explore how a better understanding of neurodiversity—including the language and experiences of it—can help us create cultures that are more inclusive, equitable, accessible, creative, and connected. We hope that through imagination and conversation, this podcast helps you think, and ultimately dream, a little differently. 

Episode One drops on Tuesday, May 2. Listen to it on our website or anywhere you get your podcasts (Spotify | Apple Podcast | Google | Stitcher | Amazon Music). Follow us on @deemjournal to be notified when each new episode comes out.

Listen Now

Jezz Chung is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City, exploring the intersection of personal transformation and collective change. With a background in movement, performance, healing justice, and community organizing, Chung blends elements of their personal history as an autistic, disabled, multiply neurodivergent, queer, Korean American into their work to explore accessible, equitable, liberated futures.

They have been featured internationally in Paper Mag, Vogue Italia, and Spain’s El País, they’ve written for Washington Post and i-D, and were named a Pride 30 honoree by Logo TV and a mental health advocate by Made of Millions. They were a featured artist for 1969 Gallery's “Pure Joy: 14 Disabled Visual and Performance Artists” curated by Chella Man and have a book with Chronicle Books due Spring 2024 titled THIS WAY TO CHANGE. You can follow their journey @jezzchung on social media and learn more about their work at jezzchung.com.

Thank you for dreaming with us.

Sincerely,
the Deem team

Hosted in partnership with the MCA, the Symposium explored how design can draw on diverse perspectives to create more equitable and inclusive communities and futures through the following themes: Dignity, Pedagogy, Equity, and Place.

On March 4th, 2023, participants were invited to experience thought-provoking presentations and conversations both IRL and virtually from intersecting voices across disciplines and generations, with a special reverence for the city of Chicago, which held this experience for us.

The full recording of the March 4th conference is now available on our Youtube channel.

Watch Discussions

The day began with introductory remarks by Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and two of Deem’s three co-founders, Alice Grandoit-Šutka and Nu Goteh.

Architect and artist Amanda Williams, whose practice employs color theory to probe anti-Black racism, began the day with an exploration of the notion of design as a social practice.

Amanda’s presentation was followed with a panel discussion on equitable community design in Chicago, moderated by Otez Gary alongside Paola Aguirre Serrano, Maya Bird-Murphy, and Tonika Lewis Johnson.

Focusing on pedagogy, designer and educator Ramon Tejada spoke from his hybrid design/teaching practice which centers collaboration, inclusion, unearthing, and the responsible expansion of design, a practice he has named “puncturing.” 

Annika Hansteen-Izora who explores ways we can create kinder, more fluid generative online worlds in Deem’s Issue Four, explored dignity in their presentation. 

The symposium closed with a conversation on place between Germane Barnes, who shared insights from his research and design practice connecting architecture and identity, and Toni L. Griffin, Professor in Practice of Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. 

In addition to the March 4th conference, Deem organized a three-day Reference Room to serve as a public gathering space for people to experience some of the reading materials that have inspired our four issues. These books, articles, and essays represented a combination of our research, specific mentions from our pages, and recommendations from contributors. It has been our hope not only to provide context and access to educational tools around Deem’s processes and beliefs, but also to create a haven for reflection and repose.

You may find a digital catalog of the titles displayed here.

Many thanks again to everyone who joined us for the Symposium.

Until next time,
The Deem Team

Deem Symposium was held in partnership with the MCA Chicago and supported by Chicago Architecture Biennial, Driehaus Museum, Institute of Design, Rebuild Foundation, Cream Wine, Norman Teague Design Studios, Gertie, and Moor’s Brewing Company.

Join us on March 4th at the MCA Chicago for a day of presentations and conversations around how design draws on diverse perspectives to create more equitable and inclusive communities and futures through the following themes: Dignity, Pedagogy, Equity, and Place.

ASL & CART will be provided for the full day. Additionally, real-time Spanish language audio translation and live captioning will be available.

Book your IRL or virtual tickets now. IRL ticketing comes with complimentary museum admission that day.

Get Tickets

We are happy to announce the Symposium programming schedule:

10 am | Doors Open

10:30 am | Opening Remarks

10:45 am | Keynote Presentation on Social Practice

Architect and artist Amanda Williams, whose practice employs color theory to probe anti-Black racism, will begin the day with an exploration of the notion of design as a social practice.

12 pm | Panel Discussion on Equitable Community Design in Chicago

Otez Gary alongside Paola D. Aguirre will moderate a conversation on equitable community design in Chicago with Maya Bird-Murphy, and Tonika Lewis Johnson.

2:15 pm | Expansive Practice Presentation on Pedagogy

Focusing on pedagogy, designer and educator Ramon Tejada will speak from his hybrid design/teaching practice which centers collaboration, inclusion, unearthing, and the responsible expansion of design, a practice he has named “puncturing.”

3 pm | Expansive Practice Presentation on Dignity

Annika Hansteen-Izora who explores ways we can create kinder, more fluid generative online worlds in Deem’s Issue Four will explore dignity.

4 pm | Conversation on Place

Pulling from his award-winning research and design practice connecting architecture and identity, Germane Barnes will be in conversation with Toni L. Griffin to discuss place and placemaking. One of Deem’s co-founders, Nu Goteh, will moderate and close out the symposium.

7-9 pm | After Party

Come enjoy a beverage or two on us at The Commons Club. Reflect on the day’s programming with other attendees and get a chance to chat with the speakers. Entry with symposium pass required.

See you there,

the Deem Team

Deem’s inaugural Symposium is an in-person and online hybrid gathering on Saturday, March 4, 2023, bringing together designers, practitioners, and community members to form dialogues around emergent and liberatory directions within design. 

Hosted in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Symposium will explore how design can draw on diverse perspectives to create more equitable and inclusive communities and futures through the following themes: Dignity, Pedagogy, Equity, and Place. Both IRL and virtual audiences will experience thought-provoking presentations and conversations from intersecting voices across disciplines and generations, with a special reverence for the city of Chicago, which will hold this experience for us. 

In addition, Deem will organize a three-day Reference Room, located at the MCA Chicago, which will serve as a public gathering space for people to experience some of the reading materials that have inspired its four issues, as well as the content of the convening’s programming. These books, articles, and essays represent a combination of our research, specific mentions from our pages, and recommendations from contributors and symposium participants. It is our hope not only to provide context and access to educational tools around Deem’s processes and beliefs, but also to create a haven for reflection and repose. The Reference Room will be open from March 3-5, 10AM-5PM.

Location

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Date/Time

Friday, March 3
Reference Room opening

Saturday, March 4
10AM–6PM Conference
7–9PM After party reception
The Commons Club at the Virgin Hotels Chicago
2nd Floor, 203 N Wabash, Chicago, IL 60601

Sunday, March 5
The Reference Room will remain open to visitors through end of day.

Participants

Amanda Williams
Germane Barnes
Toni L. Griffin
Ramon Tejada
Annika Hansteen-Izora
Paola Aguirre Serrano
Maya Bird-Murphy
Tonika Lewis Johnson
Otez Gary

Get Tickets

Hope to see you there,

The Deem Team

Dear Reader, 

In the final days of 2022, we are reflecting on the power of a question. There are lifelong questions we carry within us. Ancestral questions that we inherit, reverberating in our movement against colonialism and late-stage capitalism. There are questions that bring us joy, and help us reflect on where our ease lives. Questions to disrupt, that lead us somewhere new, somewhere we can live in our fullness and our multiplicity. In a question’s formulation, new worlds and ways of being are conjured. 

It is with that energy that we present the last newsletter of this year. A departure into collective wonder we can hold and reflect upon together.

A Question for Worldbuilding

“Do we want ‘a seat at the table’ or do we want to build other tables? Do we even need tables at all? What if we had a treehouse instead, or perhaps a picnic with a cluster of blankets? Do we need to keep the structure or the system, or do we want to build something else?”

—From Issue Three, “Envisioning Equity,” Mia Birdsong on Freedom, Equity, and Interdependence

A Question for Interdependence

“Most of us are looking for belonging, but we’ve become enamored by belongings. In the process of extraction, do we ever return what we take in full measure? Sustainability is balance. It’s taking and returning, giving and receiving. It’s not independence. It’s interdependence. I know we can’t go back, but I think we can go forward, perhaps by bringing forward practices from the past that were more in alignment with a sustainable way of life. It’s really shifting our mindsets from ‘carrying’ capacity to ‘caring’ capacity.”

—Ramsay Taum, from Issue Four, “A Sense of Place,” Reverence over Reference: Ramsay Taum speaks with Isabel Flower about the meaning of place-based values

A Question to Help Return You to Your Body

“When we are allowing something new to happen, it won’t always feel welcome if we have previously felt safe in another form. There’s a spiritual component to understanding that there are things that you haven’t yet felt that are possible to you. I love how somatics opened me up to that possibility. How do we join, within the practice of living, elements of both protection and of unraveling?

In terms of placemaking, this requires reactivating relationships inside of you and between you and the world. So yes, embodiment is a way of making place. It’s saying, ‘My body is a complete place from which I have relationships with myself and others. It is where I am.’”

—Prentis Hemphill, from Issue Four, “A Sense of Place,” Being Where We Are: Prentis Hemphill on the Body as Place

A Question of Care

“Regardless of anything and everything negative that’s said about our communities, I see the people stand up for each other every single time. It never fails. No matter what county or community I’m serving in, the people stand up with the little bit that they got and they try to hold on together. That’s the hope that I need to see. That’s why I don’t complain. I get up and I do my part. And I also think that, well, the earth is going to take care of the earth. That’s why all the stuff is happening.

The earth is going to evolve, and we will have to also, one way or another, if we want to have a place here. I do feel that if we get together and really build networks of self-determination, we could sustain. The water is coming, the storms are coming, we know what’s happening. But if I know the water is coming, do I teach my people how to swim? Absolutely.”

—Valencia Gunder, from Issue Four, “A Sense of Place,” “Teaching the Way We Needed to Be Taught: Valencia Gunder in conversation with Marquise Stillwell”

Sending you ease as we transition into a new year. Thank you for reflecting with us.

Sincerely, 

The Deem Team

Dear reader, 

Here at Deem, we are always looking for ways to give you insight into our research process. We are never thinking alone. Rather, we come from intergenerational lineages of thought and intention. From the visions of place gathered by the community of students at Mycelium Youth Network to a conversation with Ramsay Taum, a practitioner and instructor of several native Hawaiian practices—ho‘oponopono (stress release and mediation), lomi haha (body alignment), and kaihewalu lua (Hawaiian combat/battle art)—Issue Four, “A Sense of Place,” is no different.

And as the journal finds its way to you over the next few weeks, we are running our very first Reference Room bundle giveaway. In addition to a copy of Issue Four, one winner will receive a copy of Belonging: A Culture of Place (1990) by bell hooks and Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need (2020) by Sasha Costanza-Chock—two texts that imperatively shaped our journey in creating this issue. bell hooks’s view of place grounded the editors’ letter:

“We are born and have our being in a place of memory. We chart our lives by everything we remember from the mundane moment to the majestic. We know ourselves through the art and act of remembering.“

—bell hooks, Belonging: A Culture of Place (1990)

Memory makes place. Archiving is a means of remembering. We do this work to build a place in time for you and for me.

Introducing Deem Audio & “The Sweet Flypaper”

In October, we announced the release of Deem Audio, an exploratory approach to audio interviews, oral histories, and storytelling. As a part of this initiative, we will produce an ongoing series of distinct, five-episode podcast programs that highlight voices and interests within our community—and, in some cases, focus on specific topics that have especially resonated in print and in our forums. 

As a part of this, we’ve released five episodes of co-founder Marquise Stillwell’s podcast series “The Sweet Flypaper,” which borrows its name from “The Sweet Flypaper of Life,” a 1955 fiction and photography book by photographer Roy DeCarava and poet Langston Hughes describing life in the 1950s for Black families in Harlem, New York City. This conversation series responds to a growing need to reexamine how design powers the world and our lives, and its potential to thoughtfully, and poetically, influence societal change. 

Listen to a conversation between Marquise and co-founder and creative director Nu Goteh about the potential of podcasts as a medium, and how this format aligns with the Deem ethos of centering process over output.

All five episodes are now live at the audio tab on DeemJournal.com.

From the Reference Room

“We’ve always thought of our heroes as having to do with death and war. And when we think of Joseph Campbell and the whole idea of the heroic journey, it’s rarely a journey that’s about love. It’s about deeds that have to do with conquering, domination, what have you. And so part of what I wanted to say to people is that living as we do in a culture of domination, to truly choose to love is heroic. To work at love. To really let yourself understand the art of loving.”

Listen to the full 2002 interview with bell hooks on Speaking Freely, hosted by Ken Paulsonat at the Newseum Institute, on our are.na channel linked here.

A question to close:

There are 196 questions in Issue Four, “A Sense of Place,” and to honor these journeys of thought, here’s one to take with you from, “Where We Are Invited to Enter: Sasha Costanza-Chock & Cara Page in conversation”:

“What can we reimagine around care that doesn't limit us to just bodies, but expands our relationship to land, to work, to spirit, to economies that are deeply rooted in traditions of survival, and to transcendental economies that are not limited to profiting off of one for the domination of another?”

—Cara Page

Thank you for reflecting with us.

Sincerely, 

The Deem Team

Dear Reader,

How do you define place? What gives the spaces around us meaning? Is it memory, imbued within us, both ancestral and collective? 

Over the past year, Deem’s editorial team has considered the conditions in which the spatial becomes personal. Working alongside our contributors, we have sought to reclaim place and “placemaking” from the design, marketing, and planning lenses, and to work against the power of language to commodify and theorize what is deeply felt. Belonging is ritualistic, highly relational, and intimate, and happens over time. Place is so fundamental to human culture and society that the practice and philosophy of making it is as ancient and varied as history. 

It is through this journey of discovery, traversing through places both real and imagined, that we bring to you Issue Four, “A Sense of Place,”  which is now available for pre-order at DeemJournal.com. 

Pre-Order

And as we reflect further about belonging and liberation in this newsletter, who better to catch up with than Activation Residency, whose mission “aims to soothe ecological despair through local organic farm to table produce, integrated hand-crafted cabins, and wood-fired hot tubs, and sauna soaks. We are tired of hunching over laptops in apartments. We want to be in the forest with you.”

Catching up with Activation Residency:

Activation Residency invited writer Shirley Ngozi Nwangwa to discover and share secrets of the residency’s whimsy. Shirley spent two days at Work in Wellness, an Activation Residency x shocks of love program about input over output. Shirley articulates the freedom dreaming journey this residency founder, Kamra Sadia Hakim, is on, and his plans for living it more regularly. 

Who gets to see the stars at night? I considered questions like this at Activation Residency, a space for QTBIPOC art-types to engage in some of the most audacious behavior to which any of us had ever been entitled. We did a lot lying around in the sun, forest floor decorated by a wondrous carpet, furnishing our living room en plein air; soaked in the hot tub—a large wooden barrel filled with water heated by wood fire; crunched fall foliage under our feet walking from tiny house to bungalow for tea visits or an evening massage. 

We canceled all time but our own, which for nearly a week was free from capitalistic drumming to produce—here, no suggestion of participating in our oppression. We played—remnants of childhoods crept in. Wood chips strewn about brought us back to soft landings of youth, fights for joy so far away—though, at Activation Residency, joy was constantly in the air, in our lungs, in our laughter, and in our food. We pondered, how do we live this more regularly? Activation Residency founder, Kamra Sadia Hakim, knows how.

Hakim recently purchased eight acres of land, envisioning a forest farm able to host and soak. We made the half-hour drive to Hakim’s plot and cried tears of joy as we relished in the dream with him. Activation Residency and shocks of love built this residency experience for PaviElle French, a Minnesota-based musician centering healing. There, in the forest of Hakim’s land, we all stood, wooded and mossy ground giving slightly underfoot, listening to PaviElle belt an ancestral West African hymn of blessing to Hakim. Her voice swirled around us, into our slice of sky, vibrating rustling leaves of trees. Then came rain, watering seeds of vision and love inside of all of us.

Shirley Ngozi Nwangwa is a writer, actor, and creator. She is a child of Nigerian immigrants and is based in Brooklyn, NY. She writes about art, race, gender, and politics and has bylines in the New York Times, the New Yorker, New York Magazine, the Nation, Artforum, and other places. Follow her on Instagram @theartfulshirley or on Twitter @artfulshirley.

A question to close:

We invited Kamra to leave us with a question to close this month. His response:

How do you get closer to living your freedom dream more regularly? 

We look forward to seeing Issue Four, “A Sense of Place,” reach you. 

Until next time,

The Team at Deem 

Dear reader, 

Days after the fall equinox, some of our team—who are currently spread across three coasts and two continents—met in Los Angeles to finish the last phase of production for Issue Four. While we can’t disclose much more than that (yet), we will say that making a publication is ritualistic. It is a process seeking to rupture and balance, and one we co-create with friends and collaborators, and with you. Since we last wrote, our co-founders spoke with Scaffold Podcast about what inspired them to create Deem and how our print pages can reflect an ongoing practice of deep listening.

Our newsletter was created with a similar intention. This month, we had the pleasure of speaking with Issue Three collaborator and artist Althea James about incorporating equity into her vision for the illustrations that accompanied a conversation between Robin D.G. Kelley, Elleza Kelley, and editor Isabel Flower. We also heard from one of our lovely stockists, magCulture shop manager and writer Danielle Mustarde, about the last thing she read and what’s grounding her these days. As always, we end with a question—this time inspired by mushrooms.

From our Reference Room:

“The Critical Coding Cookbook perceives history as a messy entanglement rather than a linear graph. There is a growing awareness towards reclaiming ancestral knowledge and a movement to decolonize computation. Through centering marginalized bodies and identities, we aim to build a collection of alternative histories, narratives, and approaches to computation. This volume of material can serve as an open-source educational resource across a spectrum of learning communities.”

Learn more about this in-progress, collaborative, and free database here. And follow us on are.na for more resources that inspire the work we do.

Q&A with Althea James, the artist behind the illustrations that accompanied “Imagining the Immeasurable: Robin D.G. Kelley & Elleza Kelley in conversation,” in Issue Three, “Envisioning Equity”:

We invited you to illustrate a conversation about equity between seminal author and historian Robin D.G. Kelley, his daughter Elleza Kelley, and our editor Isabel Flower. What themes did you take away from the text that fed the vision for your drawings? 

The overarching question that I wanted all of the illustrations to touch on was, how can humans collectively address the insurmountable damages caused by settler colonialism and capitalism? I wanted to highlight that even though this conversation is addressing complex and dark topics, there was still a light hearted and somewhat optimistic tone in the way that the three participants were talking about the future. I wanted to focus on the idea of rearrangement and rassemblement that Elleza brought up. I was struck by the idea of how utopia cannot really exist. In order to live outside of the state we have to use what the state has already built and left us with, and in order to do that people need to be honest about who they are and what they have to contribute to this more equitable future.

Tell us a bit about your process in creating them?

I read through the whole text a few times pulling out different ideas with each read. I like to create a sort of framework of the general idea so that once I start drawing I have a bit more freedom to play on top of that foundation. After creating a rough sketch for each drawing, I start to fill things in with pen and ink. The whole process took about 5 months I would say.

The complex worlds you invent in your compositions often feature cherubs and other celestial beings. What draws you to this iconography?

The cherubs really started showing up in my work around 2017. Originally a cherub or a cherubim was a divine being who lived in the heavenly realm of the gods, either as a servant or as a mediator between humans and the divine. Different ancient empires had different ways of representing the cherubs. They went from ferocious war-like creatures with multiple heads and limbs to little asexual babies. Time is something I think about a lot in my worlds—the ability to change the exterior in order to preserve the core seems like a small act of rebellion that I want to honor in my work.

Who are some illustrators, historical or present-day, whose work you especially admire?

Some illustrators who I always come back to, who inspire me not only because they are incredibly talented but because of their connection to their work, are Hayao Miyazaki, Margaret Killgallen, Henry Darger, Wangetchi Mutu, Frida Kahlo, Osamu Tezuka, Albrecht Dürer, William Blake, Marjane Satrapi, Maurice Sendak, Edward Gorey, and Louise Bourgeois. There are many more but those are the first people who came to mind in this moment.

Stockist Highlight:

This month, we are highlighting our friends over at magCulture, an online resource, events producer, editorial consultancy, and magazine shop located in Clerkenwell, London. Shop manager and writer Danielle Mustarde was kind enough to answer a few of our questions.

What’s something you read recently that you can’t stop thinking about?

“Navigating the Mysteries,” an article in the current issue of Emergence Magazine—one of a semi-permanent stack of magazines I’ve had on my coffee table throughout the summer months. Emergence explores ecology, culture, and spirituality. In this particular essay, mythologist Martin Shaw asks, “What if we reframed ‘living with uncertainty’—the theme of the issue—to ‘navigating mystery’?” He explores the phrase in depth, concluding with four ways to light “a lantern to your own den of nighttime thoughts and wayward illuminations.” One passage that stuck with me is the following:

“Orientate to what feels like truth. Endless fictions fatigue us. Be your naturalness, then commit to the lively disciplines such naturalness is calling forth in you. … Stay honest to the shape you came here to embody.”

What is currently grounding you?

The morning sky, especially as autumn draws nearer. I’m usually woken up by my still-young cat Romy and, following her upstairs before anyone else is awake, I’m often greeted by the bright, early morning sky through our top floor window. Similarly, when I’m cycling to magCulture for work, under the open sky, the criss-cross of vapour trails (it is London, after all) meets the golden light of the rising sun. Those moments—light, really—ground me.

Finish the sentence: Reading is a forest in which…

…I can quiet my mind and willingly lose myself for a while.

A question to close:

“What do you do when your world starts to fall apart?”

—Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World

Tsing goes on to answer this question, “I go for a walk, and if I’m really lucky, I find mushrooms. Mushrooms pull me back into my senses, not just—like flowers—through their riotous colors and smells but because they pop up unexpectedly, reminding me of the good fortune of just happening to be there. Then I know that there are still pleasures amidst the terrors of indeterminacy.”  

May the things you love and wonder about pull you back to your senses.

Sincerely, 

The Deem Team 

Dear reader, 

We don’t know about you, but for us, this summer has held both quickness and slowness. While we have embraced the season’s naturally slower pace, we have also been in the final stages of preparing our fourth issue for print. Perhaps we have been finding ways to move forward with focus and intention but without the pressures of speed. Where and how does productivity intersect with repose, relaxation, and reflection? What if we thought of this place as a garden with its own rules, its own concept of time? What could we grow there together?

In the spirit of curiosity, this newsletter contains musings from Kameelah Janan Rasheed on the research “rabbit holes” we find ourselves in and the different ways of illustrating that journey, we hear what is grounding Reparations Club founder Jazzi McGilbert in a short Q&A, and end, as always, with a question to hold as we move forward together.

From our Reference Room:

“The process of doing research is generative. When someone gives you the answer, there are no rabbit holes, and no accidental findings. What’s fascinating to me about research is that you may have one clear question, but in the process of trying to get an answer or resolution, you stumble upon these other things… and they all soon become more interesting.”

In “Kameelah Janan Rasheed on research and archiving,” published by The Creative Independent, the writer, artist, and educator discusses her personal research and archiving practice, the history of archives as wielded by institutions and in relation to imperialism and colonialism, and the importance of primitive hypertext. Read the full conversation on our are.na channel.

Stockist Highlight:

We’re honored to have Reparations Club—a concept bookshop + creative space Curated by Blackness® and located in Los Angeles—among our stockists. Founder Jazzi McGilbert kindly answered a few questions for us here.

What’s something you read recently that you can’t stop thinking about?

“Strangers meeting on the streets...enabled people of unequal rank to conduct a civilized conversation and to cooperate in public projects without feeling called upon to expose their innermost secrets.”

Since a Rep Club event a while back with my favorite podcast host, Recho Omondi of The Cutting Room Floor, I’ve been working my way through Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism. He remarks on Richard Sennett's critique of the privatization and fall of “the public man.” In short, it has me thinking about L.A.’s car culture, de facto segregation, social media’s algorithm feedback loop, and performed intimacy on and offline. We’ve lost a certain public space to force interaction with people who may or may not look, think, or even relate to us on an individual level. I don’t have a conclusion here but it is something I think about often and in relation to design especially.

What is currently grounding you?

It might be a cliché answer for a bookseller, but it’s the truth: reading! Ironically, owning a bookstore means I have less time and capacity to read. So I might be feeling a little untethered day-to-day, but I come back to myself with those moments of forced meditation.

Finish the sentence: Reading is a forest in which…

…every leaf has turned to pages coated in letters forming words into portals.

A question to close:

“What time is it on the clock of the world?” —Grace Lee Boggs

This question is inspired by a conversation on remembering between Prentis Hemphill and Alexis Pauline Gumbs from the Finding Our Way podcast.

Thank you for dreaming alongside us.

Sincerely,

The Deem Team 

Subscribe now