Reverberations:
Lineages in Design History

Reverberations: Lineages in Design History transforms the gallery into an expansive educational space, reimagining design history to feature Indigenous, Black, and People of Color designers and cultural figures.

Curated by: Brian Johnson and Silas Munro

Curatorial advisors: Randa Hadi, Lisa Maione, and Ramon Tejada

Designed by:
Randa Hadi, Edgar Casarin, and Sadeem Yacoub

Images: Courtesy of the Ford Foundation Gallery, Photo: Sebastian Bach

Reverberations transforms the gallery into an expansive educational space, reimagining design history to feature Indigenous, Black, and People of Color (IBPOC) designers and cultural figures. With a dazzling assemblage of historical and contemporary works of art and design by over fifty artists, Reverberations questions the narrative of design tradition as a single dominant line. Reflecting on rich ancestries that reverberate across epochs, alphabets and graphic languages transmit contours of wisdom across cultures. Multidimensional maps reveal layers of experience and counter colonial flattening and erasures. Visual strategies deployed by Black designers are reinforced as motifs in present-day avant-garde data visualizations. And intricate Indigenous traditions of beadwork and textile art weave ancestral knowledge into the future.

An art gallery with blue walls displaying various colorful artworks, posters, and framed pieces. There are two digital screens, one featuring text and the other showing abstract graphics. A central table with chairs holds books and displays, and a shelf along the left wall contains small sculptures and items.