Workshop Leaders

A white man with a mustache and glasses is standing in a sunbeam, facing away into the light.

J. Dakota Brown teaches and writes on the intertwined histories of design, labor, and capital. During the late 1990s, he studied graphic design in his home state of North Carolina. He has lived in Chicago ever since, where has designed books and magazines, completed two graduate degrees, and taught across a variety of academic and studio disciplines. Dakota is currently a visiting associate professor at the UIC School of Design. His design clients have included Lumpen, the L.A. Review of Books, and the Newberry Library. His writing has appeared in Jacobin, Post45, and the recent collection After the Bauhaus, Before the Internet: A History of Graphic Design Pedagogy. Two essays in Portuguese translation are forthcoming from Brazil’s Clube do Livro do Design.

White man with arms crossed leaning against a wall

Chris Dingwall is Assistant Professor of Design History in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. He was co-curator of African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce, and the Politics of Race, held at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2018, and is co-editor of Black Designers in Chicago, a book based on the exhibition under contract at the University of Chicago Press. His work focuses on the history of American material culture at the intersection of race and political economy.

Headshot of Amira Hegazy

Based in Chicago, Illinois, Amira Hegazy teaches design history and theory at the University of Illinois Chicago and Columbia College Chicago. Her research project at the Design Museum of Chicago, Letters Beyond Form, looks at typography in Chicago's diverse neighborhoods to investigate design legacies and their contemporary echoes especially considering alternative modernisms and Love as an organizing principle in design. Amira is a native of Milford, Michigan where she grew up in American and Egyptian cultures. Experiences navigating between identities, places, and cultures informs much of her work and research methodology. 

Amira has an MFA in Printmedia from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Studio Art and Sociology from Washington and Lee University. She has exhibited her work at the International Print Center of New York, The William King Museum of Art, Hyde Park Art Center, Bird Show Chicago, Purple Window Gallery and other venues internationally.

Close up view of Bess, a white person with long hair, glasses, and a serious look, captured on a black and white tintype with flecks and scratches on the surface.

Bess Williamson (she/her) is a historian of design and material culture with a particular interest in social and political concerns in design, including environmental, labor, justice, and rights issues as they inform the design of spaces and things. She studied Design History at Parsons School of Design and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Delaware. She is the author of Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design and co-editor, with Elizabeth Guffey, of Making Disability Modern: Design Histories. Bess taught design history for over a decade at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and as of Fall 2024 will be Associate Professor of Design Studies at North Carolina State University’s College of Design.

Workshop Assistants

Headshot of Braxton Hay

Braxton Hay is a writer, director, and cinematographer pursuing an MFA in writing at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has written and directed five short films, two of which ran the festival circuit, winning the Audience Choice and Best Michigan-Made Film awards at the Desmond District Demons Film Festival and the Central Michigan International Film Festival, respectively. He is presently finishing a sci-fi/thriller novel he has been working on for three years. Through his fiction he is interested in exploring spirituality, loneliness, hauntology, nostalgia, and how rapidly advancing technology intersects with and affects the human condition.

A portrait of a Black woman with long blonde hair sitting outside

Abreihona Lenihan is an art historian, museum educator, arts writer, independent curator, and arts administrator of spaces that invest in and support Black art, artists, and communities. In 2022, Abreihona received a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Pittsburgh with a History of Art and Architecture and Museum Studies degree. Her research focuses on late 20th and 21st-century art and artists of the African diaspora who explore the relationship between Black ontology and popular culture. Abreihona worked as a Museum Educator in the Education Department of the Carnegie Museum of Art from 2019-2023. Currently, Abreihona attends graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Arts Administration and Policy & Modern and Contemporary Art History dual degree program supported by the 100% New Artist Society Scholarship. In 2023, Abreihona joined the education department of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) as a Teaching Assistant in the Learning Department.

Workshop Participants

Headshot photo of Noopur Agarwal partially smiling wearing a pink striped shirt standing in front of a gray wall

Noopur Agarwal is a practicing visual communication designer and educator dedicated to increasing critical public engagement with issues of global and local concern. Agarwal is currently serving as the Design Program Director at the University of San Francisco. She also maintains an active consultancy practice where her client list has included nonprofit, publishing, and technology organizations. Her work has amplified conversations around nuclear disarmament, climate change, and worldwide disparities in sanitation. In all of these endeavors, she draws upon her own biography as a second generation Indian-American woman exploring themes of identity and privilege.

A Black male leaning on a white wall, wearing glasses with dreadlocks in a dark grey sweater with a golden koi fish pin on the sweater.

Jude Agboada (he/him) is a Ghanaian-born visual communication designer and educator who has worked as a branding expert for over a decade. He currently brings his expertise and practice into education. He uses dialogue to explore ways to encourage conversation. His practice revolves around exploring how people define community, identity and culture via multidisciplinary approaches – ranging from artist books to public space activations. He’s dedicated to unearthing improved ways of creating connection by focusing on how people relate to each other and the spaces they inhabit, and the navigational skills involved for effective communication. His current research is focused on language documentation and the impact of architecture in former colonial states. He is currently a team member at Tampered Press, a publication that centers on creating more platform and visibility for writers and visual artists in Ghana, Africa and the diaspora.

Portrait of Danielle Aubert

Danielle Aubert is a Professor of Graphic Design at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her work examines materials, methods of production, machines and labor. She is the author, most recently, of The Detroit Printing Co-op: The Politics of the Joy of Printing (2019: Inventory Press), an IWW print shop that existed in the 1970s and printed tens of thousands of leftist pamphlets, posters, and books. She is also author of Marking the Dispossessed (2015: Passenger Books), and 16 Months Worth of Drawings in Microsoft Excel (2006: Various Projects). She is co-author, with Lana Cavar and Natasha Chandani, of Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies (2012: Metropolis Books). Aubert has been involved in social justice, labor activism, and coalition work in Detroit for many years. She is President of Wayne Academic Union (AAUP-AFT Local 6075) representing faculty and academic staff at Wayne State University.

Portrait of smiling man looking at camera

Joshua Duttweiler is a designer, artist, and educator. His multi-disciplinary practice encompasses personal, collaborative, and client-based projects focused on social justice and community building. Largely inspired by his ever-changing location, the work is a critical exploration of historical and present-day societal systems and constructs. Duttweiler asks his audience to consider the spaces they occupy and makes way for new voices to be heard. Joshua Duttweiler holds a BFA in Applied Design from Houghton University  and an MFA in Graphic Design from Boston University. He regularly exhibits and curates work nationally and internationally. Duttweiler currently resides in Texas where he is an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. As an educator he seeks to empower his students to change the world through their creativity.

Professor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Gretchen Gasterland-Gustafsson earned a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society for her dissertation Design for Living: German and Swedish Design in the Early Twentieth Century. She has a Fil.Lic. in art history from Lunds University in Sweden, focused on contemporary art and social consciousness in the work of Adrian Piper, David Hammons, and Glenn Ligon respectively. Following her MFA in printmaking is from Cranbrook Academy of Art she went to Sweden for a Fulbright in Design: Weaving. Gasterland-Gustafsson is currently the head of costume design for Out on a Limb Dance, chairs the board at Soo Visual Art Center, and serves on the Second Shift Studio Space board. She lives and works in the Twin Cities, in Saint Paul, where she collaborates with local artists on various projects involving both writing and making.

Close-up selfie of a woman in direct sunlight gazing nonchalantly into the camera lens.

Jenna Hamed is an artist & art worker based in Queens, New York with roots in metro-Detroit and Jerusalem, Palestine. She studied Fashion and Fine Art at Eastern Michigan University, and Arts Politics at NYU Tisch. She is currently a Part-Time Faculty Member with the Integrated Design Program at Parsons. Her research-based practice is activated through bookmaking as a container for publishing poetic compositions, archival matter, found objects, text as image, and image as text in congruence with play on materiality, design and subverting the Gaze.

Headshot of Esther Y. Kang

Esther Yeunhee Kang, Ph.D. (she/her) is a researcher, educator, designer, and artist based in Madison, WI (US). As of this fall (2024), she will be an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison's School of Human Ecology with a primary affiliation in the Design Studies Department and a secondary affiliation in the Civil Society and Community Studies Department. Esther's work examines the relationship between the systemic invisibilization of local and transnational histories and the self determination practices of disenfranchised communities and regions in the US. The intention of this work is to inform the formation of design ethics, practice, pedagogy, and policies. Esther builds upon 12+ years as a leader, practitioner, and educator in civic design, technology, innovation, and education. Her role in public service and social justice organizations focused on the redistribution of resources, power, and influence to create healthful, joyful, and thriving futures for all. Collaborators include Vera Institute of Justice, Hester Street Collaborative, Bloomberg Philanthropies' What Works Cities, and the U.S. Office of Public Engagement under the Obama Administration. Esther earned her Ph.D. in Design at Carnegie Mellon University, MA in social design at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and BFA with concentrations in photography and art theory at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Esther was born in industrial Detroit, MI to immigrant parents in the 1980s, and spent her formative years straddling two worlds—the gradual formation of the Korean community in the US and the rapid reconstruction of the Republic of Korea in the 1990s.

Portrait of Kathy Mueller

Kathy Mueller is an award-winning designer, practicing and teaching in Philadelphia. She is a co-founder of the United States for Abortion, which aims to reflect Americans’ majority support for abortion rights using tee shirts created by designers from every corner of the nation. Mueller is an associate professor and department chair at Temple University’s Klein College of Media & Communication. Her design work has been recognized by the Art Directors Club, Type Directors Club, HOW International, PRINT, and others.

Headshot of Dave Pabellon

Dave Pabellon is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Columbia College Chicago and a consultant under the moniker It Is Just Dave. As a practitioner, Pabellon's studio work consists primarily of identity, publication, and exhibition design, partnering with cultural institutions, contemporary makers, and activist organizations. As an academic, Pabellon's research explores the histories of graphic design labor as a means of building solidarity among communities of color. Specifically, he studies and researches how Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) designers have worked with and alongside liberation movements in the past and explores/experiments with contemporary design models. Before his appointment at Columbia, Pabellon was a senior designer at the award-winning studio Faust Associates. In addition to his professional and academic practice, Pabellon is a Core Organizer for the Design As Protest (DAP) Collective, a Mobile Makers Chicago board member, and is on the Dark Matter University roster.

Headshot of Federico smiling at the camera

Federico Rita is a designer and scholar in the field of visual communication. After graduating with a master’s degree from the Iuav University of Venice (Italy), he was a research fellow at the same university, working closely with Italian archival organizations like the Tipoteca Italiana Foundation and the Giorgio Cini Foundation to explore ways to enhance the value of typographic archives. He has collaborated with the Italian Universities on several historical and iconographic research projects on Brand Heritage. In particular, his work focused on the relationship between brands and community. In 2022, on the occasion of the annual AGI conference held in Trieste (Italy), He participated in the works for the international exhibition ‘Italy and the Alliance Graphique Internationale. 25 Graphic Designers of the 20th Century’ (curated by Carlo Vinti). He has been an adjunct lecturer in the history and culture of visual communication at Italian universities and graduate schools.

Headshot of a woman smiling and looking at the camera. She has light brown skin, long curly black hair, and brown eyes. She is wearing a white blouse.

Born and raised in Mexico, Elisa Soto Sanchez has built a professional career at the intersection of graphic design, museum curation, and exhibition design. She currently serves as the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Assistant at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, where she blends her design expertise with curatorial practices to create dynamic and educational exhibitions. Elisa holds a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City and a master’s degree in Museum and Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work has been recognized with several awards, including the 2023 Chicago Consular Corps Professional Development Award, the 2022 Laurette Kirstein Scholarship, the 2022 UIC Research Image Honorable Mention, and participation in the 2021 Ibero American Design Biennial in Madrid. With over eight years of experience, Elisa’s background includes roles such as exhibition designer for Coincidencias Narrativas at Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City, journal coordinator for Fwd: Museums, exhibition planning assistant at Gallery 400, research assistant at UIC’s Institute for the Humanities, and exhibition project assistant at the Chicago History Museum. Elisa is dedicated to transforming ideas into engaging museum experiences that foster cultural connections and community engagement.

Asian woman wearing a blue button down shirt with medium length black hair and clear rimmed glasses standing against a brick background

Julie Sayo (she/her) is a Filipina-American graphic designer and educator. Currently she is an Assistant Professor in Graphic Design at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Her research and studio practice explores identity and the role of graphic design in decoloniality through the study of Filipino writing systems, zine making and type design.

Portrait of Angelica Sibrian

Angelica Sibrian (she/her/ella) is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Fresno State University. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Design from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor of Arts in Design from California State University at Los Angeles. She is an active designer, educator and researcher. Her current research centers community-based learning; a space for exploring identity, race, class, and culture. Her pedagogical approach seeks to disrupt traditional learning models in art and design classrooms by centering marginalized voices. She aims to build stronger communities, equitable structures, and unifying experiences.

This is a headshot of a young Asian woman with shoulder length black hair and bangs, wearing a beige jacket over a black top. She is smiling and standing in a tropical garden setting surrounded by lush greenery.

Tian Yao is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction at Iowa State University, where she also serves as a Research Assistant working on the NSF-funded CommHEAT project aimed at designing community-focused indoor heat emergency alert systems for vulnerable population. Tian’s work emphasizes human factors and inclusive and user-centered design practices.

An analog, black and white image of agustine wearing a white button-up shirt with a floating bookshelf in the background and a shifting tall grass in the foreground, occluding half of their face and body with a soft blur.

Agustine Zegers (b. Santiago, Chile) is an olfactory artist, graphic designer, and student of atmospheric biopolitics. Their work attends to the nourishing and noxious transcorporealities we share as inhabitants of Earth, offering forms of communion with ecological collapse at the scale of the word, molecule, and breath. Their work has been exhibited across the Global North and South at venues such as Olfactory Art Keller (NYC), the Venice Biennale (Venice), Lagos (CDMX), Galería Jaqueline Martins (São Paulo), and Prairie (Chicago). They teach graphic design at Virginia Commonwealth University's Graphic Design program and offer independent olfactive pedagogy.

 
 
 

The Chicago Designs workshop is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.

We also acknowledge the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as the institutional host of this program for 2024.