In the fall of 2021, Davidson College released a Call For Qualifications for the creation of a commemorative work of art to honor the contributions of enslaved people and others whose labor was exploited. The call was open to professional artists, architects, landscape architects, and design teams with experience managing, designing, and completing public art commissions.
The jury identified the most highly qualified artist(s)/architects/teams for this opportunity, and selected five finalists, including Hood Design.
“Through our work with institutions and community organizations, we tell stories of truth. As an African-American, born and raised in Charlotte, NC, your project is particularly resonant to me. We are actively working in the Carolinas to tell the stories of those that have come before us and that tell us something about our future. In my book Black Landscapes Matter, I open with, “Black landscapes matter because they are prophetic. They tell the truth of the struggles and the victories of African Americans in North America.” It is this sentiment that will guide us in setting a creative approach to creating a public art and landscape experience at Davidson College.
We’ve reached a pivotal moment in our nation and witness a resurgence of explicit racism that pulls America’s antebellum history to the fore. As with all Hood Design’s public art commissions, we do not have the solution yet. Instead, we begin by establishing a deep, historical social, and ecological understanding of the site and asking, ‘How can we excavate and make visible Davidson College’s participation in the institution of American slavery without creating a monolithic reflection of experience? How can we leave room for new information to enter the conversation?'”
Walter Hood is the Creative Director and Founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. Hood Design Studio is a cultural practice, working across art, fabrication, design, landscape, research and urbanism. He is also the David K. Woo Chair and the Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He lectures on and exhibits professional and theoretical projects nationally and internationally. He was recently the Spring 2020 Diana Balmori Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture and the Spring 2021 Senior Loeb Scholar for the Harvard GSD Loeb Fellowship.
Walter creates urban spaces that resonate with and enrich the lives of current residents while also honoring communal histories. Hood melds architectural and fine arts expertise with a commitment to designing ecologically sustainable public spaces that empower marginalized communities. Over his career, he has transformed traffic islands, vacant lots, and freeway underpasses into spaces that challenge the legacy of neglect of urban neighborhoods. Through engagement with community members, he teases out the natural and social histories as well as current residents’ shared patterns and practices of use and aspirations for a place.
The Studio’s award-winning work has been featured in publications including Dwell, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Architectural Digest, Places Journal, and Landscape Architecture Magazine. Walter Hood is also a recipient of the 2017 Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, 2019 Knight Foundation Public Spaces Fellowship, 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, 2019 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize and most recently, the 2021 United States Artists Fellowship. Hood is also a Fellow at the American Academy of Rome and one of the 2021 elected members of the Academy of Arts and Letters. Hood Design Studio has also been featured in the 2021 AD 100 list.
International African American Museum, Charleston, SC
Join the conversation with Hood Design during their Zoom Community Engagement session on September 8 from 7-8:30 p.m. RSVP here.
We’ve reached a pivotal moment in our nation and witnessed a resurgence of explicit racism that pulls America’s Antebellum history to the fore. Similar to many other institutions, Davidson College’s founding is deeply enmeshed in the labor and commerce of American Slavery. Through the creation of this commemorative site, we strive to acknowledge the institution’s past, while paving a way for conversation and action toward a more diverse and equitable future.
Please join us for a collaborative session where we ask:
How can we excavate and make visible Davidson College’s participation in the institution of American slavery?
How do we honor the formerly enslaved and servants who physically built and maintained the college?
What should this commemorative site look like? Feel like?
What experiences would you like to have in the commemorative site?
How can we create a space that makes us want to live together?
Sarita Shreiber joined Hood Design Studio in October 2019. She holds a BA from University of California Los Angeles in Fine Arts, where she graduated as the commencement speaker. Prior to Hood Design Studio, she worked as a fabricator and sculpture / architecture conservation technician.
An artist and fabricator herself, Sarita’s diverse expertise serves all aspects of the artwork lifespan- from concept through installation and beyond. As the Art Fabrication Practice Project Manager, her projects range from museum exhibitions, temporary outdoor interventions, permanent public art installations, to memorial sculptures. On project teams, Sarita brings a strong sculptural and material awareness paired with thoughtful technical implementation, allowing for gestural form to reflect and make visible the hidden social and cultural histories specific to each site.
Michael DeGregorio is a landscape architect whose work represents a broad spectrum in the fields of urban design, landscape architecture and garden design. His interests have exposed him to various international locales, project types and phases with an emphasis on public open space. Michael’s design approach focuses on how social interaction can be manipulated through the medium of landscape to create experientially and culturally rich urban places.
Mike’s recent work as a practitioner includes the post-industrial parks of the SF Bay Central Waterfront, Crane Cove Park and Pier 70 Open Spaces, in addition to a variety of urban design and landscape master plans in Asia and Latin America. Through his owner-side experience as a Project Manager at the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, Capital & Planning Division, he oversaw a design and construction portfolio in excess of $100M.
To learn about the other finalists, click their names below:
Radcliffe Bailey
Bethany Collins & Torkwase Dyson
Hank Willis Thomas & Perkins&Will
Studio Zewde