Can Design Move Movements?
Join Caroline Tiger and Royce Epstein from Dissent By Design (@dissent_by_design), an Instagram account that explores design’s role in political protest and social movements. We will highlight how designers and artists are shaping actions, visuals, and objects for both public space and private interactions, all in the name of challenging authority and disrupting the status quo. Caroline and Royce will moderate an interactive panel discussion with some of today’s dissenters from art and design.
Panelists:
Robin Bell, founder of Bell Visuals, is an award-winning editor, video journalist, and multimedia artist based in Washington DC. Bell has become known for his light projections that serve as acts of protest. His newest project is rememberwhattheydid.com.
Joe Boruchow is a Philadelphia-based muralist and paper cutout artist whose site-specific works of social and political commentary are designed to fit into architectural niches and public spaces.
Diana Weymar is the artist/activist who created and curates the public art project, Tiny Pricks. Contributors from around the world stitch Donald Trump's words into textiles, creating the material record of his presidency and of the movement against it.
Michele Cooper is a Philadelphia-based designer and organizer whose activism work includes a t-shirt design initiative supporting immigrant rights; and co-founding the action-oriented protest group, Sisters in Solidarity, as well as the poster collective, We the Women. Michele is a founding partner of Cooper Graphic Design.
Panel Run time: 1 hour
Q&A session: Submit questions during the event or send in advance to dissentbydesign@gmail.com
Building upon his formal training as a classical printmaker, Robin developed a unique style of live video collage which he has performed at well-known venues, including The Kennedy Center, 9:30 Club, The Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Central Park Summer Stage in NYC, and The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles California. Robin was the lead video editor for PBS television show Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria. He has also taught video classes at the Corcoran College of Art and Design.
Robin’s commitment to social change through the dissemination of information via video, sound and image is present throughout his artistic career. In 2005, Robin co-produced Operation Ceasefire, a seminal anti-war concert on the national mall. His feature length documentary, Positive Force: More Than a Witness: 30 Years of Punk Politics In Action, premiered in 2014. His incisive 2017 projection, Emoluments Welcome, on the face of the Trump Hotel in Washington DC garnered media attention from the BBC, CNN, New York Times, L.A. Times, Huffington Post and Hyperallergic, among others.
Robin continues to create permanent public art installations in addition to his ongoing work with ephemeral media forms. Recent projects include collaborations with the Covid Memorial and the Movement for Black Lives.
