KE Staff Awards 2022 Public and Community Engagement: Design Transforms Borders

A Product Ceramic and Industrial Design team at CSM, led by Nick Rhodes, collaborated with the non-profit activist group Touching Land - led by artist and migrant rights lawyer Carolina Rubio MacWright and design collective Territorial Empathy to create a project called Design Transforms Borders. This project aimed to promote social justice and access in Sunset Park, a Brooklyn area facing multiple deprivation and challenges of equitability.

The project saw staff and students from CSM contribute skills and expertise to co-create a programme of experiential making as a tool for education, community building and migrant empowerment.

Over four days, workshop participants produced ceramic plates exploring the meaning of borders and attending Touching Land’s empowerment workshops on migrant rights. A total of 247 plates were made by participants and exhibited as a single installation at Brooklyn’s Industry City.

Separately, PCID students and staff contributed unique plate designs to guests at a pair of themed fundraising dinners provided by chefs Manolo Lopez and Carolina Saavedra, experts in decolonising food.

Six hundred sixty-two people attended the workshops, which coincided with the New York City x Design Festival. The project successfully shared learning and established long-lasting partnerships between the Product Ceramic and Industrial Design programme and local social-activist not-for-profit groups and communities.