Critical Design Competition For Undergrads: Get Your Voice Heard

Critical design competition to pay homage to those marginalized throughout history opens for undergraduate students across the U.S.

Undergraduate students from any U.S. college or university are invited to participate in the Campus Counterspaces Critical Design Competition to pay homage to the voices of those who have been marginalized throughout history.

The competition is organized by University of Chicago Associate Professor Micere Keels, author of the recently published book Campus Counter Spaces: Black and Latinx Students’ Search for Community at Historically White Universities.

The competition is inspired by the author’s blog post on the conflict between students’ push for full inclusion and college diversity policies that are built around tolerance. One flashpoint of this conflict is students’ demands for the removal of statues, monuments, and named buildings that pay reverence to those who gained power through colonialism and slavery.

See flyer

Keels’ position is outlined in her blog post. 

Students are invited to submit a maximum of a 500-word piece of writing, such as an essay or a poem, and at least one picture of the artistic rendering of their design plan for a piece of critical public art that could later be displayed on campus. Two winning entries will be selected and will receive funding to create a display of some aspect of their public art design plan to stimulate discussion on their campus.

• The first-place entry will receive $1,250 to create their public display.
• The second-place entry will receive $750 to create their public display.

More details here and in the attachment.

Best,

Micere

Pronouns: she/her (will also respond to they/their)

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Campus-Counterspaces.com
Micere Keels
Associate Professor
Department of Comparative Human Development
University of Chicago