The Making Home lecture series at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union presents four free public lectures featuring Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial exhibition participants paired with designers, artists, professionals, and Cooper Union faculty discussing the exhibition’s exploration of home and its relation to design, data, justice, history, and building.

For the third event in the lecture series, Making Home with History, multidisciplinary artist La Vaughn Belle and architect Germane Barnes will discuss cultural and environmental heritage in relation to their ongoing work and Triennial commissions. Both Belle and Barnes investigate Afro-diasporic social and historical narratives influencing contemporary art, architecture, and design.

Belle’s work focuses on the often-forgotten colonial narratives embedded in the architecture and material culture of contemporary society. Her Triennial installation, The House That Freedoms Built, presents three fretwork-adorned structures inspired by the shapes of 18th-century houses built by formerly enslaved people on Saint Croix, set in dialogue with the Georgian Revival exterior of the Carnegie Mansion.

Barnes’ research and design practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity. For the Triennial, he designed sound stations inspired by the craft of Gullah sweetgrass baskets as part of the Artists in Residence in Everglades’ (AIRIE) Ebb and Flow installation in the museum’s conservatory. The installation articulates the cultural and environmental heritage of the subtropical ecosystem of the Everglades, which is under threat from urban development and the climate crisis.

During this conversation, we hear more about how they each approach structure, form, and research to examine these histories.

This conversation was moderated by Kayla Montes de Oca, Associate Professor at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union. Barnes will be joining the program virtually.