Artists

Artist Bio

Dr. Craig L. Wilkins is an architect, educator and director of the Detroit Community Design Center. A graduate of University of Detroit Mercy, whose practice specializes in engaging communities in collaborative and participatory design processes, Dr. Wilkins is the author of The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on Race, Space, Architecture and Music (2007), which was awarded the 2008 Montaigne Medal for Best New Writing, the 2009 National Indie Excellence Award in the Social Change category and was a finalist in the Education/Academic category. He is also co-editor of Activist Architecture: A Field Guide to Community-Based Practice forthcoming from Princeton Architectural Press (2011). http://sitemaker.umich.edu/clwilks/home

ArtX Project Description

Title: A Stronger Soul in a Finer Frame: The 100-year effort to create the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Medium: Reading & Panel Discussion
Year Created: 2011
Description: Dr. Craig L. Wilkins will read excerpts from his current work concerning the 100-year effort to create the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), set to open in 2015 on the National Mall. The outline for the event is as follows: 30 minute reading by Wilkins, a 30 minute panel discussion regarding the reading, the proposed NMAAHC and its significance in African America, American and architectural history and culture and finally, a 30 minute Q&A with the audience. The panel will discuss how the ethereal becomes manifest; the dream, a thing; in this case, architecture. It will explore not only what it means to create an architecture that might legibly and positively represent that complex experience in a country still deeply conflicted about its racial past yet optimistic enough about its future to elect it first African-American president. The panelists are John Gallagher, architecture critic for the Detroit Free Press; Lee Bey, executive director of the Chicago Central Area Committee and former critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and; Robert Fishman, professor of architecture and planning, University of Michigan. http://sitemaker.umich.edu/clwilks/home