Archive for November, 2010

  • Vilsco6

    The BDNN WORD: Weekly News, Chit-Chat, Hot Spots – November 9, 2010

    Posted on November 9, 2010 | No Comments

    The BDNN Word is the Daily News, Weekly Briefs and Chit-Chat updates and ongoings in the black design community across the globe.  It is conceived, compiled and created by Atim Annette Oton.

    November 9 News:

    1. BDNN Fashion: Vlisco release New Ankara Lace, see here.

    2. BDNN Architecture: Ghana’s Architecture with Mabel Wilson, see here

    3. BDNN Architecture: Architects to build skills centres for housing, see here.

    4. BDNN Architecture: Exhibition to See, here

    5. BDNN Architecture: Haiti Habitat – a Call for Collaborative Design for sustainable home solutions in Haiti.  For more information visit:  www.Haiti-Habitat.com

    6. BDNN Haiti: Japan and Haiti, earthquakes, See details here

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  • The BDNN WORD: Weekly News, Chit-Chat, Hot Spots – November 5, 2010

    The BDNN WORD: Weekly News, Chit-Chat, Hot Spots – November 5, 2010

    Posted on November 5, 2010 | No Comments

    The BDNN Word is the Daily News, Weekly Briefs and Chit-Chat updates and ongoings in the black design community across the globe.  It is conceived, compiled and created by Atim Annette Oton.

    November 5 News:

    1. ART: Xenobia Bailey at the Fuller Museum

    2. FASHION: African Inspired Clothing

    3. ARCHITECTURE: Haiti and TOMAS

    4. FASHION: Patterned fashion

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  • Rivington_Adayje.002

    Rivington Gallery: A Must See in London

    Posted on November 4, 2010 | 1 Comment

    by Michele Washington

    Need of a diverse cultural surge in London? Rivington Place is a must see. Located in the Shoreditch section of East London, this exhilarating cultural center is one of the first newly built gallery artist spaces in London since the Hayward Gallery in 1968. It is a public two-story space housing two cultural organizations, Autograph ABP and INVIA (Institute of International Visual Arts). Autograph ABP curates photography exhibits with a focus on cultural identity and human rights while INVIA, provides much needed diverse global educational programs, and research in the visual arts.

    Rivington Place is booming with a multitude of dynamic programming from film screenings, lectures, plus the Stuart Hall Library, named after Jamaica born intellect and one of Britain’s leading cultural theorist of the 20th century. The library is a repository of unique holding of cultural and visual materials from British artist of diverse backgrounds to contemporary art from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, along with its expansive collection of monographs, exhibitions catalogs, and various art periodicals. It includes work by such prominent visual artist as filmmaker Isaac Julien, Hew Locke and Chris Ofili whose collaged Madonna piece imbued with dung created a hoopla at the Brooklyn Museum in 1999.

    Just as fascinating is the building’s sculptural form designed by Tanzanian born international architect, David Adajye in 2007, with offices in London, Berlin and New York City. Situated on the corner of Rivington Street and Rivington Place, the stoned structure seems much taller than its two stories. Adajye’s exterior facade was inspired by Sowei mask from Sierra Leone; the exterior structure is configured in symmetrical a lattice pattern of gray stone and glass allowing natural light to flow into the interior space. The Facades earthy gray tones are reflected in the lobby, and swanky cafe located in the back on the first floor that offers visitors tasty snacks.

    On view in the galleries through 27 November, 2010 at Rivington Place are two magnificent photography exhibits” Ever Young: James Barnor and The Paris Albums 1900 W.E.B Du Bois both curated by Autograph ABP.  James Barnor, a prominent Ghanaian photographer began his career in Jamestown, Accra in 1949. In the 1950s, Barnor operated Ever Young studio in Accra, and photographed for the top African lifestyle DRUM magazine.

    James Barnor’s showing of a series of lively over-scaled black and white or color photographs depicts everyday life of men; women and children, marks him as a highly skilled portraiture photographer. Barnor knows how to capture the essence of his subjects by placing them in a variety of staged studio settings or campy street scenes. His images span the spectrum from hyper-stylized street fashion photography of a woman in a mini dress standing in sea of pigeons in Trafalgar Square in London. To a hilarious parody by a group of African comedians switching up vaudevilles derogatory blackface to mocking whiteface.

    Untitled #8, 1972 captures a woman sporting an Afro hairstyle, as a perfect example of transferences borrowing from the 1960s Black Arts Movement in the United States. In another photograph a striking pose of preteen-girl leaning on an upright white wooden pedestal, creates a compelling visual narrative by the contrasting placement of a tattered ceramic mascot of a young white girl, originally designed for the family run umbrella shop James and Sons. Does this image imply the black girls achievement of power?

    Barnor’s body of work offer the viewer a unique chance to visually experience the transatlantic transferences of everyday life through portraitures of Ghanaians after they migrated to London during the 1960s and 1970s.

    The Paris Albums 1900: WEB DuBois featuring a unique historical collection of photography was previously shown at the 1900 Paris Exposition. DuBois showed his entire 363 photographs in the American Negro Exhibit section; this has only 200 photos of Negroe types from Georgia and they represent a visual construction of the New African American identity. They show an insight into the conditions of black culture at the end of the 19th century, just 35 years after the abolition of slavery.

    None of the sitters are identified. Simply posed, the sitters are stylishly dressed, the women in high collared laced Victorian dresses, and the men in dapper suits with crisp white buttoned collared shirts and thin bow ties. Look for the sitters’ Eurocentric facial traits with characteristically thinner noses and lips, and wavy or naturally straight hair texture; and the sequential arrangement of the photos mimicking the repetitive flow of filmstrip projected on a wall. While the images are impressive, it is the quotations aligning the outer walls above the photos that provide a context of the cultural significance of the Negroes lifestyle and DuBois’ political theory.

    Both shows run until 27 November 2010 at Rivington Place, located at Rivington Pace, in London.

    Rivington Place, London EC2A 3BA, Tel: +44 (0)20 7749 1240, info@rivingtonplace.org, web: http://www.rivingtonplace.org/

    Autograph ABP: +44 (0)20 7729 9200, www.autograph-abp.co.uk, info@autograph-abp.co.uk

    Iniva: +44 (0)20 7729 9616; www.iniva.org; iniva@iniva.org

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  • horses

    Inside African Design World by Nii Commey Botchway: November 3, 2010

    Posted on November 4, 2010 | No Comments

    by Nii Commey Botchway

    Each day, I send out a series of vital bits of information to my contacts and one day Atim Annette Oton suggested we chronicle my list of insights and websites I find into a series for Black Design News Network. Inside African Design World is BDNN’s way of collecting my insights. This is the journey where I will post 5-10 items every two weeks. Collect, Share and Re-distribute. It’s Africa’s Design time.

    1. Good Resource FYI: http://www.africandigitalart.com/

    2. Interesting Article: http://www.fastcompany.com/1596460/kenyas-first-viral-music-video-an-autotuned-blaxploitation-epic

    3. African youth and the African brand- interesting: http://annansi.com/blog/2010/04/african-youth-and-the-african-brand-presentation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+annansi%2FFgtA+%28Annansi+Chronicles%29

    4. New modes in design education: http://johnnyholland.org/2010/04/12/the-strange-connection-between-entitlement-social-innovation-and-interaction-design/

    5. This is why I teach. Portfolio of one of my ex-students who graduated just in Feb. Enjoy: http://somethingclairva.blogspot.com/

    _______________

    Nii Commey (Nii K) Botchway - Trained at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (formally the Port Elizabeth Technikon), in South Africa, Nii is a graphic designer and educator. After serving as an art director in the advertising industry for several years, he shifted his focus towards academia. Nii’s most recent posts were at Vega the Brand Communication School Johannesburg, heading up the 2nd year B.A. programme, and a part-time lectureship at NEMISA (National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa). As a participant in the ICSID Interdesign Citymove Gellivare Sweden, he worked in an internationl, multidisciplinary team of designers to develop sustainable solutions for relocating a city adversely affected by mining. This was a rewarding experience that significantly influenced his approach to design education. Nii relocated to Accra in early 2010 and worked for Ogilvy. He just returned to South Africa. Be sure to check out Ab-Strackt, Nii’s online T-Shirt company.

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  • DEPLIANT_15X21.indd

    Steven D. Joureau, an Emerging Graphic Designer in Guadeloupe

    Posted on November 4, 2010 | No Comments

    As told to Atim Annette Oton

    Steven D. Joureau, who I first met at Parsons School of Design, is today, an illustrator and an art director. He was born in Basse-Terrre Guadeloupe (the French island in the West Indies). He grew up with his two sisters and parents in Bouillante, a very calm town that was close to nature. In Bouillante, where he was raised, Steven learnt his father job: plumbing and entrepreneur.

    Later on, Steven came to understand that drawing and computer was something he loved passionately. The Guadeloupean boy would draw from the comics he saw on television or comic books. He invented characters for school assignements or for personal use and got better at drawing things he would saw.

    When he was 15, he attented Technology of Automatised System – Géni-civil (engineering school) and learnt it was the wrong place for him. At 16, Steven entered the Lycée de Rivière des Pères in Basse-Terre to study Arts Appliqués (Applied Arts) where stayed for 4 years. In his last year, he took a photography course which opened his world, and he graduated with a Bachelors of Applied Arts and received a scholarship to the School of Design at Altos de Chavon, La Romana in the Dominican Republic where he ended up with an Associates Degree in Graphic Design and excelled in two-dimensional and three-dimensional drawing.

    Altos de Chavon provided him with a chance to study Animation and English at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Steven got very impressed by the work and talent of graphic design artists in New York and this made him decide to do graphic design instead of illustration. And when he graduated from Altos, he won another scholarship to pursue Communication Design at Parsons where he took design classes in  print design, package design, advertising for print and TV, web design, html and flash, motion graphics and art history. As a student, he did an internship at Indika Advertising Entertainment and worked on ads for film.

    Steven came back in Guadeloupe in August 2006 after an unsuccesful job search in New York City. He recalls, ‘It was not easy because of the lifestyle difference and I got so used to New York’.  And it was also not easy when he returned home. First, it was difficult to find agencies in Guadeloupe. And most of the studios where he applied for would not employ him because they felts was too inexperienced for the position they were offering. His option was to freelance from creating carnival hats for kids or proposing and designing costume for a carnival group. He worked where he could. He did some graphic design but it was not that simple because the value of graphic design in New York City versus Guadeloupe is not the same. In Guadelope, people do not really want to pay for a graphic design job and the profession is not as important as it is New York.  He remembers ‘People would rather pay very little even though they admit that the work is good. In Guadeloupe, it is not a logic to pay for art’. And ‘we are accustomed to graphic design or advertising’ like New York or France.

    Since February 2007, Steven has worked at Publicis Caribe as an Art Director. His experience here has taught him alot and has given him the opportunity to work with large, medium and small companies. He smiles as he says, ‘most of the time you have to ‘redo yourself’ – redo or rethink the way you work is vital even when most of the time your client does not want to take your advice and they prefer doing what they think is the best whether it is more creative or aesthetic’. It is a challenge and he is learning to deal with it.

    What Steven has come to understand, Guadeloupe is beginning to understand graphic design. An example he shares, ‘A client will contact you to develop a promotional event for them at the last minute and you have just 2 to 3 days to do the job. You agree on the design and it will be change even with a short deadline’. It makes you think that even when you are offering the best of your work, you end up doing work that is not always coherent in itself and for the brand.

    At Publicis Caribe Ad, his wwork has been for clients like Orange, BMW, Mazda, Honda, Electric Plus, Blandin, la Créole Beach, DSDS, and La Région Guadeloupe to name a few. One of his  latest work is the website of the agency www.caribead-agency.com.

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  • walter

    A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

    Posted on November 3, 2010 | No Comments

    Evidence of Twenty First Century Diversity in One Premier Southwest University

    by Walter L. Wilson, AIA, NOMA, NCARB

    There were no disagreements among the passengers, two women, in my Chevy HHR with regard to the vivid landscapes Mother Earth painted along either side of the concrete and asphalt ribbons snaking south and westward toward Stillwater, Oklahoma.  The passengers, my wife of over 26 years and my 85 year old mother-in-law, were more or less accustomed to hanging out together on long road trips across the United States and Canada. This Oklahoma trip was also meant to be among our last outings together as a traveling trio, my mother-in-law is slowly losing the vigor and get-up-and-go she once had when we were younger. Ours was meant to be a laid back road-trip originating in the lakefront city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Site-seeing was especially noteworthy for this, mid April trip, and outbursts of pleasure and astonishment inadvertently interrupted the whispering road noises in the background.  I was excited and anxious to return to the trade mark Permian red clay soil on which set the town of Stillwater, Oklahoma and more importantly Oklahoma State University School of Architecture.

    It was a 75 degree, partly cloudy Oklahoma day. Light rain was forecast but no storms were expected.  The delightful fragrance of blossoming redbuds and Japanese Lilacs trees filled the air. The occasion was the one hundredth anniversary of the Oklahoma State University School of Architecture [1909-2009].  Facilitating the move out of its cramped, inefficient quarters in the engineering building to the rejuvenated old stand-alone Oklahoma A&M College Armory weighed heavily on the mind of Dean Randy Sitsinger, on the harried days leading up to the big extravaganza. Three days were programmed to be the memorable centennial celebration of the architectural school’s one hundred year heritage as a premier academic, architectural program, and that must have been weighing very heavily on young dean’s mind.    The early Twentieth Century brick masonry Armory, was renovated and expanded with bookend additions into the new Donald W. Reynolds School of Architecture.  A grant of $14.8 million from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation provided the funds to remodel 37,000 square feet of existing structure plus an additional 45,000 square feet of new floor space for classrooms, offices, a large auditorium, a lecture hall and more.

    Overflowing pride, interspersed with anxiety and nervousness, masked Dean Sitsinger’s round face and conservatively cropped fading brown hair and short stocky build, but his warmth and welcoming smile easily camouflaged his pensiveness and unease.

    I do not know how many of the alumni, their spouses and others registered for the OSU School of Architecture Centennial event.  Nor do I know what states or countries the guests were from, but I am certain most regions of the United States were represented and a few countries from overseas were, as well.  Attendance estimated to be three hundred or more people.

    Back in the day, when I first arrived at OSU, I was one of only three African American students in our freshman architecture class.  I was the only African American remaining at the end of my sophomore year and in the entire school of architecture through my fifth year – the only African American remaining in my 1971 graduating class as well.

    Fast forward to 2010:  This time around, I was hoping to meet many more African American grads, who must have followed in my footsteps at OSU in later years.  One young OSU School of Architecture grad I looked forward to seeing I recalled meeting at an AIA convention in the OSU hospitality suite.  Another, my freshman classmate and colleague, who dropped out of school our freshman year but went back to OSU several years later to get his degree was not there either.  I scanned the faces of guests and former students, looking for familiar faces. I did not see any other African Americans except a couple students in a design studio; I was perplexed and emotionally moved with joy and sadness.  I experienced joy to once again see old friends on the campus, who were instrumental in shaping my perspectives and career in architecture and saddened by the stark reality of being the only African American ex-architecture student attending this very special celebration.  From the available evidence I had, it seemed that I was the only African American alum attending the celebrations.

    I quietly asked myself, where are the African American students who graduated from this school of architecture after me?  Was the centennial celebration not as important to them as it was to me?  Did other factors enter into their decisions not to come?  In my mind, this was the once-in-a-life-time opportunity to reconnect with my old classmates; to reunite with those who, in one way or another, sculpted my years at Oklahoma State into a great life-changing transformation from a young inner city day-dreamer into a full-fledged architectural design professional contributing to and shaping America’s built environment.  Three days in Stillwater sparked moments of déjà vu; emotion, exasperation, enlightenment, setbacks, advancements, and above all a reaffirmation of my decision to attend Oklahoma State University and pursue a career in architect.

    A young and energetic forth year architecture student cheerfully singled the tree of us out of the crowd and offered to be our tour guide through the new and improved school of architecture.  The building with its new facilities and facelift was impressive, by any standard.  For a moment, I pictured myself sitting at a table in one of the studios opening my mind up to the various ways architecture might be the instrument to fashion a more creative, stimulating, sustainable and livable built environment for humanity.

    The hospitality, the ceremonial banquet, and campus celebrations at the end of the second day were unforgettable.  It provided a platform for representatives of past years to reminisce and reflect upon the ways the school of architecture had touched and influenced their lives and visa versa.

    But, the diversity of numbers – especially African Americans – that I missed during those three days at OSU School of Architecture is what was missed over 40 years ago when African Americans, few in number but high in aspiration, were beginning to integrate colleges and universities all over the United States.  Back in Milwaukee, I wondered. Where was the evidence that anything had changed at OSU, a bona fide, premier, flag ship School of Architecture in the state of Oklahoma with its stellar reputation and enviable legacy?  I wondered again.  Where was the evidence that anything [of significance] had changed in the twenty first century?

    _______________

    Walter L. Wilson, AIA, NOMA, NCARB is a 1971 graduate of Oklahoma State University’s School of Architecture. He has been a Milwaukee County Architect and registered to practice in Wisconsin and Ohio.

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