ARTISTS & DESIGNERS WORKING IN TRACEWORK: LEGACY, MEMORY, PAST + FUTURE<\/b>
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Alisha B. Wormsley Aneesh Bhoopathy Ayana V. Jackson (Current AIR at EN!)<\/b> <\/p>\n Dina Nur Satti<\/b> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Junius Williams <\/b>(City of Newark Historian)<\/b> <\/p>\n + <\/b>Rise Up Newark<\/i><\/b> Lebohang Kganye<\/b> <\/p>\n Noelle Lorraine Williams<\/b> (Director, NJ Historical Society)<\/b> Noelle Lorraine Williams<\/b> (Director, NJ Historical Society)<\/b> <\/p>\n Sal\u00f9 Iwadi Studio<\/b> Shimon Attie<\/b> <\/p>\n Temi Coker<\/b> Theaster Gates<\/b> <\/p>\n Tr\u00e9s Seals<\/b> <\/p>\n Tuan Andrew Nguyen<\/b> <\/p>\n W.E.B. Du Bois<\/b> Newark Public Library \u2014 Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center<\/b> Newark Public Library Digital Collections<\/b> My Newark Story (Library Project)<\/b> AGGREGATED AND SPECIALIZED CATALOGS<\/b><\/p>\n Newark Archives Project<\/b> Digital Archive of Newark Architecture (DANA)<\/b>
\n<\/b><\/b>Interdisciplinary artist working with text, installation, photography, and social practice to assert Black futures while grounding them in collective memory and lived histories.
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.howwegettonext.com\/there-are-black-people-in-the-future\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Graphic designer behind the new Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani\u2019s, visual identity and campaign. She is part of the Philadlehpia-based design group, Forge,<\/span>
\n<\/b>https:\/\/www.forge.coop\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Artist whose photographic practice interrogates histories of colonialism, gender, and power by re-staging and re-embodying archival imagery. Through self-portraiture and historical citation, her work exposes the constructed nature of the archive while reclaiming agency over Black representation across time.<\/span>
\n<\/b>https:\/\/www.ayanavjackson.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\nBahia Shehab<\/b>
\n<\/b>Lebanese\u2013Egyptian designer, artist, and historian whose work bridges Islamic visual culture, calligraphy, and political resistance, treating typography as a living archive.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.bahiashehab.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\nCandy Chang<\/b>
\n<\/b>Artist and civic designer whose participatory public works invite collective reflection on loss, hope, and shared experience. Through simple, accessible frameworks installed in everyday spaces, her projects transform personal expression into visible, communal dialogue<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.candychang.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Designer and ceramicist whose work treats objects as containers of memory, often referencing Sudanese and diasporic histories through material and ritual form.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dinanursatti\/?hl=en<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\nShepard Fairy<\/b>
\n<\/b>Street artist, graphic designer, and activist Shepard Fairey created the poster of then Senator Barack Obama in 2008 as a form of grassroots activism to support Obama\u2019s first presidential campaign.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/artworks\/229396\/barack-obama-hope-poster<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\nFred Wilson<\/b>
\n<\/b>Conceptual artist known for excavating museum collections to reveal suppressed histories and institutional bias, reframing the archive as an active, political space.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.pacegallery.com\/artists\/fred-wilson\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\nHank Willis Thomas
\n<\/b>Conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.davidsoncollegeartgalleries\/with-these-hands<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>Sylvia Harris
\n<\/b>Information designer whose work reimagined complex civic systems\u2014such as healthcare, voting, and public services\u2014by restructuring how public information is organized, accessed, and understood, foregrounding clarity, equity, and use over form.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.aiga.org\/membership-community\/aiga-awards\/2014-aiga-medalist-sylvia-harris<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\nHelina Metaferia<\/b> (Just created two public artworks in the City of Newark)
\n<\/b>Interdisciplinary artist whose work examines migration, displacement, and collective memory through collage, installation, performance, and social practice. Drawing on archival research and community collaboration, her practice traces the entanglement of personal history with broader political and historical movements.
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.helinametaferia.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>Ibrahim Mahama<\/b>
\n<\/b>Artist whose large-scale installations use found materials embedded with economic and colonial histories, emphasizing trace, labor, and circulation over time.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/ibrahimmahama3\/?hl=en<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Activist, author, and cultural organizer whose lifelong work centers Black self-determination, political memory, and Newark\u2019s grassroots histories. Through writing, organizing, and institution-building, his practice preserves movement knowledge as living legacy rather than static archive.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.juniuswilliams.com\/<\/span><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Community organization and cultural platform dedicated to documenting, preserving, and activating Newark\u2019s radical histories. Through storytelling, public programs, and grassroots archives, Rise Up Newark treats legacy as a tool for present-day organizing and future-building.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/riseupnewark.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Artist working with photography, performance, and family archives to explore lineage, memory, and post-apartheid identity through reenactment and spatial collage.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.lebohangkganye.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>Maya Lin<\/b>
\n<\/b>Artist and architect whose work explores memory, landscape, and collective history through minimal, site-responsive forms. Working across sculpture, architecture, and environmental design, her practice engages how spaces shape reflection, remembrance, and public experience.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.mayalinstudio.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Artist working across sculpture, performance, and historical research, reanimating Black historical narratives and embodied memory.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/blackpower19thcentury.com\/stay-the-ballantine-house<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>Nontsikelelo Mutiti<\/b> (Director, Yale MFA Graduate Graphic Design Program)<\/b>
\n<\/b>Nontsikelelo Mutiti is a Zimbabwean-born visual artist and educator. She is invested in elevating the work and practices of Black peoples past, present, and future through a conceptual approach to design, publishing, archiving practices, and institution building.<\/span>
\n<\/span>http:\/\/nontsikelelomutiti.com\/
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\n<\/b>Artist working across sculpture, performance, and historical research, reanimating Black historical narratives and embodied memory.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/blackpower19thcentury.com\/stay-the-ballantine-house<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Adrian Piper<\/b>
\n<\/b>Conceptual artist and philosopher whose work confronts race, identity, and social power through performance, text, and installation. Using strategies of provocation and self-reflexivity, her practice challenges viewers to examine their own assumptions and positions within larger systems of belief.<\/span>
\n<\/span>http:\/\/www.adrianpiper.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Design studio working across furniture, objects, and interiors rooted in African narratives, material culture, and reinterpreted craft traditions.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.saluiwadistudio.com\/projects<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Artist whose site-specific installations and projections overlay historical images onto contemporary spaces, making traces of erased communities visible in the present.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.shimonattie.net\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Artist and designer whose visual language draws from diasporic histories, African aesthetics, and speculative identity-making through typography, image-making, and systems design.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/temicoker.co\/About<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Artist whose work transforms archives, libraries, and collections into sites of renewal, treating cultural inheritance as a social and spatial practice.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/rebuild-foundation.org\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Designer\/ type designer, and owner of Vocal Type. He had a brain tumor diagnosed at age four and found writing and drawing as \u201cthe only means to work through the pain.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.treseals.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Artist and filmmaker whose work investigates lost or suppressed histories, blending archival research with speculative storytelling to imagine alternate futures.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.tuanandrewnguyen.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>Sociologist, writer, and activist whose work examined race, inequality, and Black life through research, writing, and pioneering data visualization. By combining empirical analysis with narrative and visual form, his practice reframed social data as a tool for understanding lived experience and systemic injustice.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu\/web-dubois<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>We Should Do It All (WSDIA)<\/b>
\n<\/b>Creative studio and collective engaging art, design, publishing, and cultural production centered on overlooked histories and collective authorship.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/wsdia.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\nLIST OF FREE\/BROADLY ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES <\/b>
\n<\/b>& RESEARCH RESOURCES (WITH FOCUS ON NEWARK + NJ)<\/b><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Major local archive with documents, photographs, maps, newspapers, scrapbooks, yearbooks, ephemera and more in <\/span>Newark and New Jersey history<\/b>. Many items are <\/span>digitized and searchable online<\/b>, with extensive collections in African American and Hispanic community history, local organizations, and printed materials.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.npl.org\/main\/cfcnjic-collections\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Free online access to thousands of digitized historic items including photographs, printed materials, and local history content developed with a Carnegie grant.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/digital.npl.org<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>An outreach program tied to the Newark Public Library\u2019s digital archives with subject guides and contextualized primary sources on industry, migration, labor, and community history.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/www.npl.org\/mynewarkstory\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>A <\/span>searchable online database<\/b> of descriptions for thousands of archival collections related to Newark history, held across multiple repositories (libraries, archives, museums, and government agencies). It\u2019s a powerful tool to locate primary sources by keyword, subject, date, or repository.<\/span>
\n<\/span>http:\/\/nap.rutgers.edu<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>A specialized digital archive focused on the <\/span>built environment of Newark<\/b> \u2014 maps, architectural documentation, photographs, planning materials, reports, and related texts. This archive connects resources from NJIT, Newark Public Library, and partnering institutions.<\/span>
\n<\/span>https:\/\/design.njit.edu\/digital-archive-newark-architecture<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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