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December 14, 2015
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New City, an arts and design publication in Chicago, published an opinion piece by Afield co-directors Kai Wood Mah and Patrick Lynn Rivers on 14 December 2015.
The piece, titled “Design for Justice: Policing, Architecture and Urban Design in Chicago Post-Laquan,” is a response to an installation by Studio Gang on show at the inaugural Chicago Architectural Biennial. Studio Gang, which is the Chicago-based practice headed by Jeanne Gang, put forth a design proposition at the biennial intended to mitigate conflict between the Chicago Police Department in particular and the city’s African American community. Mah and Rivers’ response stresses the need to mollify power differentials between a powerful institution like the police and black communities first and foremost before police and minority communities can make peace much less play basketball.
