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The interior walls highlight memories of recently passed faculty and advocates of racial justice, Mel King and Tunney Lee, along with the 2020 Black DUSP Thesis. Included in the design is a background is an image of a watercolor by Tunney Lee, capturing his first memory arriving by boat to East Boston in 1938.
The translucent glass and forthcoming sculptural objects highlight city-led reparations efforts to redress the legacies and ongoing forms of racialized violence. The objects are co-designed by Delia Wendel, Tiandra Ray, Yabework Kifetew, and Mel Isidor, based on research conducted by the Planning for Peace research team [Silvia Danielak, Emilie Flamme, Kevin Hsu, Yabework Kifetew, Mariama Ndiaye, Tyler Rivera, Jess Shakesprere, and Melissa Teng).
The space also features rotating student artistic reflections on memory and racial justice (with first projects by Tiandra Ray, Georine Pierre, and Nolen Phya). The inscription in the hall nook (left) reprises the last lines of Garnette Cadogan's 2016 essay, "Walking While Black".
Isidor Studio led the design of the permanent installation alongside design collaborator Sarah Rege. The overall project was led by Professor Delia Wendel with funding through MIT CAST Mellon Faculty Fellowship.
Preserving African American Places seeks to understand the implications of place-based injustice and their impact on the preservation of African American cultural heritage, as well as to identify preservation-based strategies for equitable growth and development that respect the historical and present-day realties and conditions of African American Neighborhoods.
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In the summer of 2018, ten students at universities across the United States were selected as AACHAF Research Fellows and were commissioned to research and write essays on neighborhood change and historic preservation in ten study cities.
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