Join Cooper Hewitt for a tour of A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes, co-led by exhibition curators Susan Brown and Alexa Griffith.

Join Cooper Hewitt for a virtual tour of A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes, co-led by exhibition curators Susan Brown and Alexa Griffith.

Explore how architectural drawing can help bring to life a fictional world in a hands-on drawing workshop inspired by the exhibition An Atlas of Es Devlin. Led by artist and designer Annie Coggan, participants will create their own series of freehand architectural drawings to visualize and interpret spaces for their fictional characters to inhabit. 

Put pen, or crayon, to paper and experience sketching in a whole new way! Take part in drawing games that challenge your imagination and increase your sketching confidence. Perfect for participants of all ages, you will create playful portraits while challenging your powers of observation and use color to bring emotions of your favorite story to life. This program is inspired by the work of artist and designer Es Devlin, currently on view in the exhibition, An Atlas of Es Devlin.

Put pen, or crayon, to paper and experience sketching in a whole new way! Take part in drawing games that challenge your imagination and increase your sketching confidence. Perfect for participants of all ages, you will create playful portraits while challenging your powers of observation and use color to bring emotions of your favorite story to life. This program is inspired by the work of artist and designer Es Devlin, currently on view in the exhibition, An Atlas of Es Devlin.

Es Devlin is an artist and stage designer whose multidisciplinary work spans theater, opera, sculpture, dance, arena concerts, and installations. Devlin’s art brings people together—whether in an intimate theatrical setting or a vast stadium venue—to form what she calls temporary societies, united through the experiences she creates. Join Devlin and contemporary design curator Andrea Lipps as they discuss how together they developed Devlin’s first monographic exhibition, An Atlas of Es Devlin, for Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum alongside its accompanying publication, published with Thames & Hudson.

Join us as we go behind the scenes with the firm nARCHITECTS, winner of the 2023 National Design Award for Architecture. nARCHITECTS was founded by Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang in 1999, with the goal of addressing urgent issues through socially engaging architecture. The firm works for the public good, maximizing the mutual positive impact between communities, buildings, public spaces, and their environment. 

What does it look like when disabled people are viewed not as edge cases or afterthoughts in the design process, but as the default users? What happens when, instead of flattening disability into an indistinguishable group of “all abilities,” we understand and design for the unique and varied experiences of disabled people? How can we prioritize, honor, and celebrate disability in our design practice? Join our panelists in conversation to answer these questions about designing FOR and WITH disability. 

How has communication design evolved over the course of two centuries? Join 2023 National Design Award Winners—Seymour Chwast, Design Visionary; Arem Duplessis, Communication Design; and Beatriz Lozano, Emerging Designer—in a conversation about how changes in communication design have shaped their work, as well as where they see the future of the field. Conversation moderated by Ellen Lupton, Curator Emerita, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.