Graham Foundation has released the names of the 2021 Individual Grant recipients - a grant supports innovative ideas in the fields of films, design, digital initiative, research, and exhibitions over the past 65 years. 71 creative individuals from across the world were chosen for their inventive ideas and creations that tackle pressing issues on society.
After an overwhelming 2020, the grantees presented work that responds to several challenges in architecture, design, and urban spaces, each in their own unique perspective. Among the many subjects presented were: Black culture, climate crisis, the Great Migration, Civic and political equity, and African architecture and design, to name a few.
Here are some of themes shared by the individuals that were awarded with the 2021 Individual Grant, along with their description, courtesy of the Graham Foundation:
Technology and Computational Design
Jessica Charlesworth and Tim Parsons
Chicago, Illinois
EXHIBITION: Catalog for the Post-Human
17th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice, Italy
Presenting a satirical collection of sculptural works and animations that provoke conversations about the impact of surveillance and human enhancement technologies upon an increasingly contingent workforce, this iteration is presented at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Sean Lally
Lausanne, Switzerland
EXHIBITION: Shaped Touches
17th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice, Italy
This full-scale installation at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale takes the form of a multi-player video game platform to explore the relationships between architecture, people, and communities, to illustrate opportunities and implications for urban public space.
Climate Crisis
Stefano Boeri, Maria Chiara Pastore, Fiamma Invernizzi, Maria Lucrezia de Marco, Simone Marchetti, Sofia Paoli, Luis Pimentel, and Livia Shamir
Milan, Italy
PUBLICATION: Green Obsession
(Actar Publishers)
This publication on the work of architect Stefano Boeri and his studio, Stefano Boeri Architetti, puts forth an urgent call to action to the field to fundamentally address climate change through design.
Pedro Gadanho
Lisbon, Portugal
PUBLICATION: Climax Change! Architecture's Paradigm Shift After the Ecological Crisis
(Actar Publishers)
An overview of how climate change and the current environmental emergency affects the practice of architecture—in terms of direct impact on design philosophy and on the opportunities to transform the course of the discipline's aesthetic, ethical, and professional principles.
Indigenous People’s Placemaking Experiences
Theodore S. Jojola and Lynn Paxson
RESEARCH: Contemporary Indigenous Architecture–The Pueblo Worldview
Albuquerque, NM and Ames, IA, United States
Expansion of the discussion and scholarship of what is ordinarily seen as architecture stuck in prehistory, to the contemporary and transformational.
Constance Owl
Palo Alto, CA
DIGITAL: ᎠᏂᎩᏚᏩᎩ / Anigaduwagi / People of Creator’s Land
David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries, Stanford, CA, United States
Mountain Heritage Center, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC
Through an indigenous reading of historic maps and settlement patterns, the exhibition explores Cherokee strategies of placemaking and how notions of sacred stewardship, belonging, community, and language have been used in the creation and reclamation of Cherokee spaces.
The Great Migration
Amanda Russhell Wallace
RESEARCH: The East Texas Oilfield as an Architecture of Memento Mori
New London, CT, United States
This project proposes an alternative to the narrative of the early twentieth century Great Migration by conflating the open and expansive architectural structures of the East Texas oilfield and the often secluded, rural cemeteries as a point of departure for a multimedia installation.
Jerald Cooper
Cincinnati, OH, United States
RESEARCH: Architectures of Abolition
Using the Underground Railroad networks of Ohio as an anchor for contemporary conversations in defense of Black lives, this exhibition delves into the events, people, and places of the mid-nineteenth century escape routes to situate the built environment as a matter of life and death.
Black Cultural, Civic, and Political Equity
Kelly Walters
New York, NY, United States
EXHIBITION: With a Cast of Colored Stars
Aronson Gallery, Parsons School of Design/The New School, New York, NY
This exhibition examines visual representations of Black identity found in the print design of African American cinema, television, and music.
Jamila Moore Pewu
Fullerton, CA, United States
DIGITAL: Art of the Matter
This project documents, preserves, and critically engages the spatial narratives and public art practices that emerged during the 2020 protest for Black lives and racial justice by capturing both artworks and streetscapes in a crowdsourced, deep mapping application and discovery platform.
African Design Dialogue
Adil Dalbai and Livingstone Mukasa
Berlin, Germany and Rensselaer, NY, United States
DIGITAL: Africa Architecture Network
This project establishes an online community of practice—composed of researchers and architects who are passionate about architecture in Africa—building from the more than 300 authors who collaborated to develop the first comprehensive architectural guide to sub-Saharan architecture, aiming to increase visibility to the continent’s-built environment and enable exchange among practitioners, scholars, and others.
Russel Hlongwane and Sumayya Vally
Durban and Pretoria, South Africa
DIGITAL; Amaxiwa | Embodied Archives
Working from the idea that sites of memory are sites of imagination, this project takes the form of a set of speculative histories and archaeologies on sites in Benin; Senegal; Accra, Ghana; and Zimbabwe, to counter otherwise erased, silenced, or invisible architectural histories and imaginaries.
Decentralized or Democratic Design
Brockett Horne, Briar Levit, and Louise Sandhaus
Baltimore, MD; Ojai, CA; and Portland, OR, United States
DIGITAL: The People's Graphic Design Archive
A crowd-sourced virtual archive of graphic design history built by everyone, about everyone, for everyone.
Marisa Morán Jahn and Rafi Segal
Brookline, MA and New York, NY, United States
PUBLICATION: What is Ours: Art and Architecture Towards Mutualism
(Columbia University Press)
An anthology of conversations with leading thinkers, designers, entrepreneurs, and activists whose perspectives on collectivism and mutualism engender communal self-determination, wealth, and well-being.
Landscape Architecture
Gareth Doherty
Cambridge, MA, United States
PUBLICATION: Landscape Fieldwork
(University of Virginia Press)
This book provides landscape architects and designers with a method—landscape fieldwork—to understand and design landscapes aided by the experiential knowledge gained from the field.
Marc Treib
Berkeley, CA, United States
PUBLICATION: The Aesthetics of Contemporary Planting Design
(ORO Editions)
An international survey of the understudied subject of planting design aesthetics in contemporary landscape architecture.
Discover the full list of the 2021 Graham Foundation Individual Grant Recipients.
