About the lecture/ discussion
NOMA Atlanta is presenting the Storytelling Series to share thoughts and ideas for how we, as designers and architects, can play a more integral role in how we narrate the stories we tell through our design work and community engagement. We are identifying organizations and individuals who showcase impactful ways to celebrate people, art, culture, and history through their design, use of activism, communities and education. In this series segment, we are talking with the DAP Collective on how they tell stories through their initiatives.
The lecture will discuss the direct action and methodologies of installing Buildable Memorials into spaces and communities through conversation and examples. These memorials and monuments illustrate the people, places and futures stolen by white supremacy and state-sanctioned violence. Come learn how to coordinate, illustrate, assemble and install pop-up memorials in public spaces, sites of protest, and places where land and/or life have been lost to racial violence.
About the DAP Collective
Design as Protest (DAP) is a collective of anti-racist designers dedicated to Design Justice in the built environment. Co-organized by BIPOC designers, DAP exist to hold our professions accountable in reversing the violence and injustice that architecture, design, and urban planning practices have inflicted upon Black people and communities of color. Design as Protest champions the radical vision of racial, social, and cultural reparation through the process and outcomes of design.
DAP Direct Action Team
Navjot Heer is an architectural designer and urban planner with a passion for centering the voices and leadership of impacted communities, building deep relationships, demystifying urban design and policy, and storytelling. In her current role with Thrivance Group, she focuses on dignity infused community engagement, anti-displacement research, policy recommendations, and coalition building. She is the daughter of South Asian immigrants, an abolitionist, and lifelong learner aspiring to build kinship networks and communities of care in Chicago, where she currently lives. Navjot is a core organizer with the Design as Protest Collective, the Defund CPD campaign, and a related constellation of projects working to divest from policing and invest in transformative, life affirming institutions and resources.
Preeti Sodhi (she/her) is an urban planner with over a decade of experience working with neighborhoods across New York City. Currently Director of Community Engagement with The High Line, she oversees the development and execution of the organization’s comprehensive community engagement strategy. Previously she served for six years as Project Director at Spaceworks, a nonprofit developer and operator of subsidized artist workspace. As a Design Fellow with Architecture for Humanity, she directed the redevelopment of the LES Skatepark through a public private partnership with Nike and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. Preeti is the Founder of Hello Voter, a civic engagement initiative connecting New Yorkers with local government and is a Core Organizer with Design as Protest.
Karim Hassanein (he/they) is an interdisciplinary, values-driven designer committed to supporting civic engagement and creating a more just world in everything they do. Karim thinks and works at multiple scales–from storytelling to event coordination to urban design–always with a commitment to collaborative relationships based on trust and empathy. They currently serve as board chair of Open Signal, a nonprofit community center in Portland, OR focused on amplifying the voices of communities historically underrepresented or misrepresented in broadcast media. In 2020, Karim helped co-found #MaskOutHate, an artivist initiative bringing BIPOC together to design PPE masks that respond to the increased racism experienced by our communities during the pandemic. They are a member of the Portland Architecture Lobby chapter and a Core Organizer with Design as Protest.
