Theaster Gates’ Experimental Design Lab hopes to amplify emerging artists, designer’s work to develop a nexus of creative energy on the South Side

When you think of the fashion brand Prada, do phrases like algorithmic bias, technology and sensory attachment, double Dutch and cryptography, hair salons turned into community computer spaces where music residencies take place come to mind?

How about aquaponics, a form of farming thousands of years old where fish and vegetables are grown together in water? Where accessibility to food security is taught in an urban environment so people can learn how to grow food to feed themselves?

The phrase “luxury couture” springs readily to mind, but how about design made from waste material while also changing the narrative of what it means to occupy space and share the wealth, energy and dignity of difference that exists within Black spaces?

Artist-activist Theaster Gates is making sure such phrases intersect with the fashion world with his brainchild The Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, a partnership created in 2021 between Gates, Prada and Gates’ Dorchester Industries (the design and manufacturing arm of Gates’ Studio) and Rebuild Foundation meant to support, invest in and share the work of emerging and established designers of color.

“For too long, our creative communities have possessed the talent but lacked exposure and opportunity,” Gates said in a statement. “Now more than ever, today’s leading creatives must elevate the work of emerging designers of color and connect them to great companies interested in diverse talent.”

Over a dozen designers in fields like dance, architecture, product design, agriculture, fine and culinary arts from Niger to Chicago make up the inaugural cohort of fellows selected in April — half of whom are from Chicago or have Chicago-based studios. Participants were nominated and selected by a committee of leaders across the fashion, art and design industries through a review process, having demonstrated creative potential in their respective practices.

Among the 14 artists and designers in the first cohort are, with their respective categories, Tolu Coker, Fashion Design (London); Germane Barnes, Architecture (Miami); Kyle Abraham, Dance (Pittsburgh); Mariam Issoufou Kamara, Architecture (Niamey, Niger); Kendall Reynolds, Footwear (Chicago); Yemi Amu, Agriculture (New York City); Kenturah Davis, Visual Art (Los Angeles); Salome Asega, Art, Technology, and Design (New York); Brandon Breaux, Fine Art & Design (Chicago); Summer Coleman, Graphic Design (Chicago); and Catherine Sarr, Fine Jewelry Design (Chicago).

During the 18-month lab, fellows receive monetary awards to aid in the creation of new projects. Fellows from Chicago like Norman Teague, designer, educator and founder of Norman Teague Design Studios, Maya Bird-Murphy, architectural designer, educator, and executive director of Chicago Mobile Makers, and Damarr Brown, chef de cuisine at Virtue Restaurant, have the opportunity to connect and collaborate with one another while presenting their work to global companies and organizations looking for BIPOC artists for projects.

The Design Lab also serves as a platform for mentorship and networking for creatives with global design leaders. Lab exhibitions, public dialogues, activations and workshops allow the cohort members to interact with the wider communities, locally and globally.

Born from Gates’ involvement in Prada’s Diversity & Inclusion Council (formed after the fashion industries reckoning with race and representation), which he co-chairs with writer and director Ava DuVernay, since 2019, the Experimental Design Lab is meant to close the inclusion gap within Prada and the fashion industry. Gates said one of the key ambitions behind the program is to generate a nucleus of design energy on Chicago’s South Side.

“For too long, there has been an evident pipeline and visibility barrier for designers of color working across the creative industries, and the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab not only challenges the notion that Black talent is hard to identify, but also serves as an inescapable answer to it,” Gates said. “It is a tremendous honor to be able to celebrate, support, and amplify the work of these designers working to enrich our collective understanding of and interactions with design.”

Approaching the first year anniversary of the lab’s start, we spoke with Teague, Bird-Murphy and Brown about their Design Lab journey so far. The cohort recently returned from a trip to Milan, Italy, to partake in a Prada menswear fashion show.

Teague was creating a “Cabinet of Curiosities” from wood in his studio space in the Back of the Yards Clock Tower Industrial Center. The over 6-foot-tall object stood tall and proud, surrounding Teague in the center.

“It will basically house objects that tell stories,” he said. “Gather objects from different parts of the city and possibly the world, to go inside, it takes on a whole new life. It could be something that brings Chicagoans together to tell their stories, keep it filled with particular things from neighbors. Imagine if there was one for Greater Grand Crossing and another for Englewood that might take on a new shape, but still carries a narrative from the community.”

Teague has spent many years serving as a mentor and teacher to the next generation of product/furniture designers. His custom work can be seen in a number of museums (Sinmi stool), retail stores like L1 (inside an “L” station built in 1892 along Garfield Boulevard in Washington Park), and public spaces like the Bronzeville Winery (yes, the chairs you sit in are a design created in his studio with fabricator and design engineer Max Davis). Sawdust smells permeate the air as sketches of brushes with bristles and baskets and footstools sit on the wall at Norman Teague Design Studio. He said they are things that haven’t made it to the world yet. But the moment he gets the budget for all his line works, they will start to happen, images that ponder the concept of sitting and privacy. He said he wants to play in the little world of small things without forgetting about the larger things. In an adjacent space, prototypes of Teague’s chairs sit on a massive shelf — all conversation starters given their modernist, playful designs. Having gone to Milan for a Prada menswear show recently as part of the cohort, he laughs saying that the show was inspiring to the point where the public might see some skirts in his upcoming work.

“I’m not trying to do what’s been done already,” he said. “To be Black and be in design is practically to do the impossible. Traveling the world, I’ve seen that design is like ice cream in other countries, so regular and it causes exchange and equitable relationships to be established. We don’t have enough of it. The more I can instigate that … with the Prada team, Rebuild team, and help turn design into something that other young people might want to be eager to be a part of is exciting for me.”

Teague said his participation in the Design Lab cohort is about thinking bigger and wider.

“To be able to share, collaborate and do projects that might reach people in China is really inspiring to me. Not only to me, but I work in a studio full of young designers. I think that they’ll be the next gate openers for the next group of people,” Teague said.

Bird-Murphy has been helming Mobile Makers Chicago, a nonprofit that brings design/architecture-focused skill-building workshops to underrepresented communities, for somewhat less than six years. During the pandemic, she was taking the programming to youth in a repurposed van. She just celebrated the opening of a bricks-and-mortar Humboldt Park location in early June, which offered summer camps for youth ages 8-18 in July. Decked out with solar panels and a 3D printer, Bird-Murphy would take the van to pop-ups and street festivals bringing quirky objects and things like fluorescent laser-cut acrylic shapes for children to play and create with. The goal is hyperlocal community engagement. Where activities like creating small wood basketball hoops leads to talks about what makes a great community space in a developing community, and using a historical event like the Chicago Fire to talk about inequities in the urban landscape after the fire.

“We talk about building equitable cities with young people through these shapes,” she said. “But we also are teaching young people how to use the tools here as well. Our programs range from design architecture, digital fabrication and construction. We want the kids to basically master these tools. So they can go out in the world and know how to 3D print or use a CNC machine and get jobs doing those kinds of things.”

As a member of the inaugural cohort, Bird-Murphy is expanding her thinking on how far Mobile Makers could go. She said just being invited to be in the Design Lab was a huge reminder that there’s so much more out there for her and her project. The Oak Park native said if cohort members can be flown to Milan, what can be done with Mobile Maker kids?

“This trip to Milan was another reminder to keep expanding goals and dreams, not just for me since everything for me is about the kids and expanding their worlds too,” Bird-Murphy said. “This whole thing is about flipping architecture education on its head. It’s not necessarily about trying to get more people to go into architecture, but we will give you skills you can take with you into the world. And hopefully you’re going to do something design-related. Design touches every part of our life. If you know how to design, how to problem-solve, then you’re going to be good wherever you go and whatever you do. Hopefully some of the kids come back to Chicago and help to improve their own neighborhoods.”

Brown has been working with James Beard-award winning chef Erick Williams for the past dozen years. As chef de cuisine at Virtue, customers of the Hyde Park restaurant may have enjoyed Brown’s mac and cheese recipe throughout the years. With plans to open his own restaurant in the future, one centered on the women who raised him, Brown said being in the room with other wildly creative people in the Design Lab having conversations about future collaborations and how everyone’s practices intersect has been amazing. With the Design Lab focused on inclusion and diversity, Brown said he wants to continue to educate himself on the history of Black food and cook off of that narrative and educate others about it.

“It’s been beneficial, because talking to Tolu about fashion, or talking to Norman about furniture or space, somehow makes me think about food a little bit differently, and what’s possible,” Brown said. “Thinking about the way my grandmother would put beans on a tray, and pick out the broken ones or the way she would carefully wash collard greens a minimum of three times has me thinking about the way things have always been done, informing the way we’re doing them now. What I saw my grandmother doing back then was technique, and now I’m using some of those techniques in what a lot of people would consider a high-end restaurant. Being informed by your history, by your ancestors, and holding a lot of pride on the weight of where we come from has been very cool. I think that most of those I’ve spoken with (in the cohort), they draw from the past to create what’s happening in the present.”

Brown thinks had he not been chosen to be in the cohort, he would not have made these kinds of connections with other creatives from around the world or even if he met them, he wouldn’t have this kind of relationship with them given the different industries and silos they exist in. Now, the group is a tight-knit one, where the members think of each other when opportunities come up.

“I think it’s quite brilliant,” Brown said. “Everyone else when they’re doing something, they call their boy to do it. They have their friend over here or over there, and that’s how people get in. Lots of times you can’t do the same thing. I think it’s great that we’re cohorts in this room together, a room that wouldn’t necessarily organically happen on such a broad scale. Some of these people in Chicago, I would’ve bumped into sooner or later, but there’s people from New York, London and now I have all these people’s contact information. We talk about things that we would like to do together in the future, and those are conversations that would never have happened before.”

drockett@chicagotrib