On Memory: Design Brigade Week 3.
How do we redefine our role? How does this recontextualize “memorial”?
We were originally tasked to use design to memorialize those lost to the pandemic and our collective memory of this crisis. As we delved into research in the past weeks, we recognized that in order to serve New Haven, we must dissolve all assumptions attached to the project, including those within the original brief.
This week, our work consisted of: (1) Talking to and learning from leaders in the New Haven community and (2) Planning and organizing a visual survey for the Juneteenth ‘Teach In’ in East Rock Park. Our current process has been newly defined by critically examining, redefining, and reframing our team’s role and responsibilities within the project scope and community.
Outreach and Engagement
We dedicated most of the week’s meetings with residents of New Haven — Artists who gave us inspiration, advisors who guided our next steps, and local leaders who helped us foster partnerships and expand our outreach. We still have a long way to go; our many questions and blank spaces can only be filled by listening and learning from New Haven residents.
We would like to highlight what we learned that lead to shifts in our process:
(1) What do people want?
We jumped into this project with “memorial” in mind. As this slowly morphed from being centered around COVID-19 to social justice, we realized a need to question the original aims of this project before moving forward. This week we paused to ask: Do people even want a memorial or a space for grieving? Or do they want a place for healing, restoration, or gathering? Are there spaces and places like these that already exist within the community?
(2) Word Choice
Language and word choice are important. In several conversations, we discussed the power of language, the implicit messages that it can hold, and its capacity to be alienating or welcoming. In response to feedback we received, we changed certain words in our materials. Moving forward, we will be constantly reevaluating the language we use in describing this project and in our questions to partners and collaborators in the community.
We know that we have blind spots as a team. Thus, we are committed to constantly learning and asking for feedback on language whenever possible. If you have any suggestions or thoughts about the language we use in any of our materials, please email us at onmemory.nh@gmail.com.
(3) Form meaningful partnerships
We want to engage New Haven’s residents by fostering partnerships with trusted community organizations. We know that no one organization can speak for the community of New Haven as a whole and different organizations have different relationships to the communities they work in. In order to serve New Haven residents best, we hope to collaborate and partner with organizations that garner strong levels of trust, are actively anti-racist, and are not only dedicated to serving the community, but also an integral part of the community — by the people and for the people.
In partnering with residents and organizations, we need to acknowledge our own positionality (as primarily Eurasian Yale students, born and raised elsewhere) and know that building trust is difficult, essential work. By building a network of partners interested in this project, we can connect the voices of residents to the resources of the City, Design Brigade, and Yale, as well as our team’s design skills.
(4) Build on what’s already there
We have been overwhelmed by the amount of inspiring work being done by New Haveners to support and improve this city. In asking what people might want from this project, we are conscious of the fact that initiatives are already underway and networks are in place.
In light of this, we are asking ourselves: What infrastructure, traditions, or spaces might already exist for us to contribute to? Does our final idea have to be an entirely new structure? Maybe our energies would be better utilized by supporting pre-existing endeavors rather than trying to build something entirely our own. Our team’s skills and connections to resources are an asset, a privilege, and a service that we can offer in service of community-driven initiatives.
Tapping into existing initiatives can also help ensure the longevity of this project. For example: there are community service requirements for many New Haven public schools — could we partner with a local school and its students to create a community space that can stand the test of time? There are existing parks and community-run gardens — could our project help with upkeep and maintenance for these spaces?
(5) Self-awareness
We know that coming into New Haven with the Yale name brings up a painful history of disrespect and distrust. In programs similar to ours that claim to serve New Haven, Yale has often exacerbated its already-fraught relationship with the city by producing ‘band aid’ solutions or worsening problems. This partially stems from failing to listen to and learn from New Haven — a belief that Yale can provide services to the community while ignoring the essential knowledge, work, and systems created already by New Haven organizations and residents.
We are students from Yale. This fact provides understandable barriers to building trust. It means that we do not completely understand what it means to live in New Haven outside of the Yale-student experience. However, while we are part of Yale, we are also individuals with a desire to serve New Haven residents to the best of our ability and our connections to Yale and its resources are tools that we can use to that end.
A New Frame of Mind
Dissolving assumptions
- We cannot assume that people want a memorial, healing space, or any other intervention.
- We cannot ignore the work that was started before we entered this space and will continue after we leave.
- We cannot take the words of a few individuals as the voice of all the people; the New Haven community is not a monolith.
What is our role? What service can we provide to the residents of New Haven?
- We can set this project in motion, and lay the groundwork for its fundraising and realisation.
- We can provide design services pro-bono to support an initiative that community members want realized.
- We can listen and learn from people who live and work in the communities we see to serve.
- We can build a network of local leaders, organizations, and residents.
- We can serve as a bridge connecting and communicating the ideas of this network to the City and the resources of Design Brigade
- We can build upon existing systems and networks, bring our own talents to the table, and leverage the resources that our sponsors and clients can provide.
- We must remember that we are here to help, but other people have no obligation to engage with our project. We can only hope for these partnerships by being self-aware, by being honest about who we are and what our capabilities are, by being transparent about our work, and by keeping our hearts and minds open.
“LIBERATION DAY! March & Teach-In” (Juneteenth)
Co-sponsored by Citywide Youth Coalition, People Against Police Brutality, Students for Educational Justice & the Yale Afro American Cultural Center, the event married march (from the New Haven Green to East Rock Park) with learning and celebration. Addys Castillo of the Citywide Youth Coalition graciously invited us to participate in the event and gather input for our project.
We created three black boards, each with a question. People wrote their responses and ideas on post-it notes and placed them onto the respective board. We asked the following questions:
- I want future generations to remember this time of protest and pandemic by: ____________
- I want a space for : a) reflection/healing b) gathering c) remembrance/grieving d) other _____________.
- I want to see more ___________ in my neighborhood.
Of our 100 flyers with project information, we handed out 80. Several of those individuals had looked at, responded to, or discussed the questions on the boards. We will be uploading all responses to our website (see next section) in the following week, as well as a deeper analysis of how these responses will drive our design process.
A few of many people’s responses:
I want to see more ______ in my neighborhood:
- Art and art parks, colored artist recognition
- Parks and green spaces, flowers and gardens
- POC community spaces.
- Community-building activities for families, community centers for kids
- Inclusive sculptures, black historical statues
- Police-free spaces
I want a space for a) reflection/healing, b) gathering, c) remembrance/grieving, d) other_________ :
- Most people voted for a space devoted to a) reflection, healing, and b) gathering.
- Other spaces d) included: art, writing, music, and parks.
I want future generations to remember this time of protest and pandemic by:
- “Coming together in love for justice, black lives matter movement”
- “Rebirth, a chrysalis”
- “Breathing deeply”
- “People who died to catalyze this reawakening”
- “Transformation”
- “Courage of protestors during global pandemic”
- “I can’t breathe relates to both George Floyd and COVID”
- “Led by youth”
- “Disruption is important for re-thinking whether normal is good”
- “Black Resilience”
- “Creativity, Art”
- “Remembering your voice is powerful and can be used to bring about change”
- “Bringing Community Together”
- “Normalizing radical thought”
Transparency, Approachability, Accessibility: Website + Email
[onmemory.cargo.site]
We spent time this week transforming our progress into a visual website. We are not trying to teach things we are not equipped to teach, or share histories we have not ourselves experienced. Instead, the website captures our personal progress and developments: By going through the site, you learn alongside us.
Our purpose in creating this was to make sure everything we do is publicly accessible, and that all our decisions are transparent. The website allows us to present everything as transparently as possible.
Given the short time frame of our internship, we hope this serves as an archive of what we’ve done, and will help those picking up the work after our part is complete. It is something that our clients at the City and our community partners can continually refer to.
To this end, we also created an email account to attach to surveys and flyers in hopes of increasing our approachability. Email us at <onmemory.nh@gmail.com>.
Next Steps
- More meetings with community organizations, and hopefully, the people they serve.
- Meeting with clients from the City of New Haven: In advance of this, we plan to update our website with this week’s work as a way of presenting what we have done. We will be presenting our findings so far in terms of what people want, serving as a bridge between the City and the people. Based on what we know so far, we will present potential concepts and ask how the City might be able to help.
- Narrow the scope: We cannot try to cover an entire city, so what are the neighborhoods that we can, and more importantly should, focus on? From conversations this past week, we’re hoping to place emphasis on the communities most affected by coronavirus and systemic racism — Newhallville, Dwight, The Hill, and Fair Haven.
- Survey: We will partner with local organisations to edit and send out a survey — digitally through email pan-lists, physically via mailboxes, and potentially via digitised phone calls. We are being careful to cast aside any assumptions when formulating questions, and hope to sincerely and genuinely reach out to the people of New Haven and ask what their needs and desires are.
Additional Resources
‘Art became the Oxygen’, by US Department of Arts and Culture.
‘Storytellers’ Season Finale Marks Healing And Truth’, by Rachel Ababio (Arts Council of Greater New Haven)
‘The Narrative Project’, founded by Mercy Quay // ‘The Narrative Project Launches Into Orbit’, by Lucy Gellman (Arts Council of Greater New Haven)
‘The Little Book of Design Research Ethics’ by IDEO.
“Two Rooms Make One Village On Crown Street,” by Lucy Gellman (Arts Council of Greater New Haven)
‘Young Black Artists Speak About the Role of Art in This Moment’, by Nick Mafi (Architectural Digest)
