The 2023 Special Recognition for Architecture, Design, and Urban Design supports Toni L. Griffin’s Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures project as part of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, The Laboratory of the Future.
Toni L. Griffin
Toni L. Griffin, 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Lesley Lokko. Photography by Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
Jury
Leo Chow
Scott Duncan
Iker Gil (Chair)
Mark Sarkisian
Doug Voigt
Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures exposes the lost histories and unrecognized imaginations of creativity born in spite of the segregation and land vacancy found in “Black Belt” neighborhoods of Chicago’s South Side. It develops new, multiple, and wayward “yardsticks” for identifying and working with previously unmeasured cultural values. The installation uses collage, mapping, film, and voice-generated 3D clay objects to transform and translate the cultural practices, joys, and dreams of eight Chicagoans into a fantastic future—a vision composed of a taxonomy of architextures for Black space, ownership, and development.
The vessels are 3D printed sound objects that hold the voices of each Chicagoan. The patterned texture on each vessel is the frequency map of their audio recorded interview. The form of each vessel is inspired by memories of place and the superpowers each would use to to create spaces of Black joy, empowerment, and fulfillment. The eight Vessels are arranged in a circle on a symbolic parcel of vacant land where its latent monetary value and potential to build Black wealth is exposed.
Mashaune, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Loyal, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Tim, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Janeen, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Rodney, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Fisher, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Lillie, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Father Tolliver, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
The portrait collages present the being of each of the eight Black Chicagoans. Each person is planted on the land from which their imaginary and superpowers are illustrated using Chicago-based references of South Side midcentury modern architecture, black-owned establishments and institutions, and Black cultural practices. The “flyers” (Jesse White Tumblers), the “butterflies,” and the “hair” appear across the portraits, video, and map to reference commonly held beliefs and aspirations of the Black Chicagoans about freedom, liberation, mobility, and the transcendence of Black cultural production.
Butterfly
Exported transcendence of Black culture.
Hair
Connectedness of Black people across the Black diaspora.
Flyers
Black resilience, excellence, and ascension in the face of adversity.
Land
Images of chronic land vacancy in the historic Black Belt neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.
Mashaune, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Loyal, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Tim, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Janeen, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Rodney, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Fisher, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Lillie, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
Father Tolliver, Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
The map brings scale to the abundance of land availability as a canvas for creating Black space and wealth in neighborhoods owned and controlled by Black people. The map presents an imaginary snapshot of possibility if the eight Black Chicagoans constructed a collective Fantastic Future.
Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures, 2023. © Toni L. Griffin.
The Chicago-based work that Toni L. Griffin has been doing as part of her practice, urban american city, and the long-standing research of the Just City Lab platform she leads at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design has been remarkable. Her work provides invaluable and new portrayals of Chicago’s South Side and Black life.
Iker Gil, Executive Director, SOM Foundation
Team Members
Toni L. Griffin, Danny Clarke, Rayshad Dorsey, and Gabriel Soomar.
Authorial Collaborators
The Just City Lab.
Technical Collaborators
Sandra Steinbrecher (Photography), Vashon Jordan, Jr. (Photography), Lee Bey (Photography), Saurabh Mhatre (Material Processes and Systems Group & Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities), Deighton Abrams (Ceramics Program, Harvard University), and Christopher Nelson (urbanAC).
Graphic Design and Communications
Siena Scarff Design and Cathy Lang Ho.
Support
Theaster Gates & The Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, SOM Foundation, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative.
My hope is to create a dialogue between land histories and current conditions, fostering ideas on how architectures and spaces are imagined and created by Black people, as a way of reclaiming the space of the city where Black Americans were formerly confined to inhabit and thrive.
Toni L. Griffin
Toni L. Griffin, 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Lesley Lokko. Photography by Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures. Project page from the urbanAC website.
Land Narratives—Fantastic Futures. Project page from La Biennale di Venezia website.
Toni L. Griffin
is the founder of the New York-based urbanAC LLC, a planning and design management practice that works with public, private, and nonprofit partnerships to reimagine, reshape, and rebuild just cities and communities. The practice designs and leads complex and transformative social and spatial urban revitalization projects rooted in addressing historic and current disparities involving race, class, and generation. Over the past ten years, Griffin has successfully collaborated with several major US cities on the cusp of just social and economic recovery. Recent cities include Chicago, Indianapolis, Rochester, and St, Louis. Griffin is also a Professor in Practice of Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she teaches design studios and seminars also rooted in issues of social and spatial justice. She is founder and director of the Just City Lab, an applied research platform that investigates the ways design can have a positive impact on addressing the conditions of injustice in cities. She is the author of multiple articles on design justice, and co-editor of The Just City Essays (2015) and the upcoming publication The Just City Dialogues: Disruptive Design. She has lectured extensively in the US, Netherlands, South Africa, and South America, and between 2016–2020 served as an Obama Presidential appointee to the US Commission on Fine Arts.
