Designing a Better Chicago shines a light on our city’s extraordinary design legacy—the local talent, assets and community that have long supported civic good through design. Launched in 2020 with a Design Impact grant program, this initiative showcases individuals and organizations, public art and programs across the city, inviting residents and visitors to consider the many ways design improves civic life. Join the 2020 grant winners (Kathy Gregg, Friedman Place and Maya Bird-Murphy, Chicago Mobile Makers), the 2021 grant winners (Tariyawn Knighten, The Tilden Pilot to Permanent Design Incubator and Emily Winter, The Weaving Mill), and the 2022 winners (to be awarded) to hear about their outstanding efforts to design a better Chicago. The panel will be moderated by Tanner Woodford, founder and executive director of the Design Museum of Chicago.
Moderator: Tanner Woodford, Founder and Executive Director, Design Museum of Chicago | Panelists: Kathy Gregg, Friedman Place | Maya Bird-Murphy, Chicago Mobile Makers | Tariyawn Knighten, The Tilden Pilot to Permanent Design Incubator | Emily Winter, The Weaving Mill
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About the Panelists
Tanner Woodford is founder and executive director of the Design Museum of Chicago. As an artist, he paints optimistic, typographic, and larger-than-life murals. His work has appeared at the WNDR Museum, Soho House Chicago, and is permanently installed at Weber Shandwick in the John Hancock Building. In 2020, Tanner was appointed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to the City of Chicago’s Cultural Advisory Council. As a designer, educator, and entrepreneur, he has taught, lectured, and led workshops on design issues, social change, and design history in classrooms and at conferences. Tanner received a Bachelor of Science in Design from Arizona State University in 2009, and returned to teach in 2010. More recently, he teaches Design Thinking For Social Change at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is happy to be scrappy, irrepressibly optimistic, and believes design has the capacity to fundamentally improve the human condition.
Kathy Gregg is a professional fundraiser with nearly 20 years of experience working mainly at organizations that serve our elders and people who are disabled. She has been with Friedman Place for 6 years. She graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in English and Writing. She uses all she learned to write inspiring mission based stories for major gift proposals, annual appeal and planned giving campaigns, in writing grants and prospect research. She values education, enjoys learning new things, and served as a member of her local school board and various professional organizations. Prior to her career in fundraising Ms. Gregg worked in the financial markets for a decade trading stocks and commodities.
Maya Bird-Murphy is the founder and Executive Director of Chicago Mobile Makers, an award-winning nonprofit organization bringing design-focused skill-building workshops to underrepresented communities. She is also a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Boston Architectural College. Maya believes that the design field must expand to include more people and perspectives through teaching and community engagement. She loves Chicago and hopes to make her mark by making it a more equitable place to live. Maya was recently featured in Dwell Magazine and was selected as an Experimental Design Lab awardee, an initiative led by Theaster Gates, Rebuild Foundation, and the Prada Group.
Tariyawn Knighten is a Chicago based artist, documentarian, educator and self published author whose work derives from growing up and working on the west side of Chicago. By exploring narratives within the Black American aesthetic, Knighten's view of Chicago creates personal relationships between himself and the subjects he documents through photography.
Emily Winter is an artist and weaver based in Chicago. She is co-founder of The Weaving Mill, an experimental industrial weaving studio that blends design, production, textile education and research-based practice. Her work utilizes material experimentation, functional design, community-based practices, research and publication to explore the intersections of industry, material histories and technology. She earned her MFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design and her BA in History from the University of Chicago. She has received project support from the Center for Craft, the Design Museum of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the City of Chicago, the Propeller Fund and the Rhode Island School of Design and has taught weaving at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Chicago Weaving School.