2023 Design
Challenge:
Communal Present
What gift can you offer your community?
AIGA VT invites you to create a 16”X16" square artifact in any physical medium that expresses your gift to this community.
The challenges we have collectively faced over the past three years have brought a new recognition of the need for community care and mutual aid. Reciprocity now resonates as vital to our survival, with gift exchange offering the possibility for deeper connection and the strengthening of community bonds. For AIGA VT’s 2023 challenge, we ask how might we adopt these sentiments of gift and care to address the needs of our Vermont community, while also utilizing our own gifts as designers and creatives?
We take inspiration from the community quilt, a practice that has been used by many groups facing difficult or traumatic circumstances to grieve, process, and express care through the act of collective making. For instance, during the Civil Rights era, a group of African-American women located in Gee’s Bend, Alabama utilized the tradition of quilting out of necessity as well as self expression, to piece together bed covers for their families to stay warm. In the 1980s, the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was a response to the collective trauma of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, creating the largest piece of community folk art in the world. Each of these examples show us how creating together can offer a tangible contribution that addresses our communities needs.
For the challenge, we invite you to create a 16X16" square artifact with max a depth of 16” in any medium (can be physical or digital) that expresses your gift to this community that will eventually be weaved together with other “gifts” to create a form of community quilt that will be installed as an installation in the Karma Birdhouse Gallery at 47 Maple Street. We invite you to use this venn diagram framework, created by the marine biologist and climate scientist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, as a means for generating your gift. You can use the center segment as a starting off point for your submission. Whatever stands out to you in the center is your gift to the community. Any medium. Any message. Grounded by whatever gift you feel you can offer to your community with the intent of care. During the de-installation process, you will have a chance to trade squares with another participant of the design challenge.
Deadline for Submission: April 3rd
Install date in Monday May 1, 2023
Submit here.
AIGA VT 2023 Design Challenge Committee
Chair: Jonathan Banfill (he/him), Assistant Professor, Champlain College
Thea Heck (they/he/she), Project Manager, City of Burlington Center for REIB
Kyra Dissinger (she/they), Graphic Designer, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain
Kat Hartley (she/her)
AIGA VT Board Representatives
Jeremy Beaudry (he/him), Membership
Isa DeMarco (they/them), At-Large
Cy Krevlin (he/him), Volunteer
AIGA VT invites you to create a 16”X16" square artifact in any physical medium that expresses your gift to this community.
The challenges we have collectively faced over the past three years have brought a new recognition of the need for community care and mutual aid. Reciprocity now resonates as vital to our survival, with gift exchange offering the possibility for deeper connection and the strengthening of community bonds. For AIGA VT’s 2023 challenge, we ask how might we adopt these sentiments of gift and care to address the needs of our Vermont community, while also utilizing our own gifts as designers and creatives?
We take inspiration from the community quilt, a practice that has been used by many groups facing difficult or traumatic circumstances to grieve, process, and express care through the act of collective making. For instance, during the Civil Rights era, a group of African-American women located in Gee’s Bend, Alabama utilized the tradition of quilting out of necessity as well as self expression, to piece together bed covers for their families to stay warm. In the 1980s, the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was a response to the collective trauma of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, creating the largest piece of community folk art in the world. Each of these examples show us how creating together can offer a tangible contribution that addresses our communities needs.
For the challenge, we invite you to create a 16X16" square artifact with max a depth of 16” in any medium (can be physical or digital) that expresses your gift to this community that will eventually be weaved together with other “gifts” to create a form of community quilt that will be installed as an installation in the Karma Birdhouse Gallery at 47 Maple Street. We invite you to use this venn diagram framework, created by the marine biologist and climate scientist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, as a means for generating your gift. You can use the center segment as a starting off point for your submission. Whatever stands out to you in the center is your gift to the community. Any medium. Any message. Grounded by whatever gift you feel you can offer to your community with the intent of care. During the de-installation process, you will have a chance to trade squares with another participant of the design challenge.
Deadline for Submission: April 3rd
Install date in Monday May 1, 2023
Submit here.
AIGA VT 2023 Design Challenge Committee
Chair: Jonathan Banfill (he/him), Assistant Professor, Champlain College
Thea Heck (they/he/she), Project Manager, City of Burlington Center for REIB
Kyra Dissinger (she/they), Graphic Designer, ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain
Kat Hartley (she/her)
AIGA VT Board Representatives
Jeremy Beaudry (he/him), Membership
Isa DeMarco (they/them), At-Large
Cy Krevlin (he/him), Volunteer