 On the Ground
Paprika? : In the Pit with Lilly Agutu & Sarah Kim
Paprika? invited Lilly Agutu and Sarah Kim, two students in the Yale M.Arch I, to hold a conversation on their experiences during the last year as BIPOC students and to speak a bit about their current and upcoming work with Equality in Design (EiD) and the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS).
An excerpt from the conversation
“I remember one time...I walked to the CVS [near Rudolph Hall], and then as I came back down Chapel, it just got less and less Black. I walk into Rudolph Hall, there’s a Black security guard, and then I go in the elevator, I go up to the sixth floor...and I’m the only Black woman. I felt like I was being filtered. My first weeks there, it made me very uncomfortable to see a lot fo Black and Brown faces on the street, but none of them really represented in the building. So in that way I really felt the divide, and it just reinforced my self-consciousness.” - Lilly Agutu
|
|
|
 Letter from EID and Yale NOMAS: In response to Dean Berke's message
Equality in Design and Yale NOMAS
We write to you as the coordinators of two student-led organizations and as members of the Black student community here at the YSoA, in the wake of the largest collective demonstration of civil unrest around state-sanctioned violence against our Black communities that our generation has ever seen. The urgency of this movement and the overwhelming show of support across so many communities, from all corners of the country and abroad, have been invigorating and validating. But we are all too familiar with the inevitable loss of momentum behind initially energetic protests such as these, along with the commodification and co-opting of movements, the insincere signaling of optical allyship, and vague, ineffective statements to “do better” without a deep and critical reassessment of the structural ills within the systems and institutions we navigate.
|
|
|
Open Letter to the YSoA in Support of BLM's message
YSoA Alumni
Four hundred years of systemic violence and racism against Black communities have been drawn into sharp relief in the past two weeks centering around the Black Lives Matter movement. This time of global action and urgency is an opportunity to lead change, and yet the Yale School of Architecture’s public silence has been deafening.
We, the Alumni, want to know: what is the YSoA doing to actively support a more diverse academic community to fight racism in all its forms moving forward? How will the YSoA dismantle institutional racism and rebuild itself to promote an inclusive vision of architectural education and amplify BIPOC voices that remain profoundly underrepresented?
|
|
|
 Articles
"The ‘How to get away with Racism’ recipe"
Claudia Ansorena, M.Arch II 2022
This is a Cuban-American take on a cult favorite dish. It has mostly been passed down in verbal conversations, bits and pieces here and there, which I have gathered throughout my lifetime. This written version is a product of watching and listening. I see you tia y tio. I see you, family friends who spend the day reposting racist news clips on Facebook. I also hear you, the trauma and loss you’ve experienced. I wonder then, how the irony of your own words, “why don’t they get over it already?” does not resonate with your own troubles. Cuban exiles have a rare opportunity to empathize with the Black experience in America, so why then, do they choose to ignore, suppress, and condemn it?
"Minotown"
Yiou Wang, M.Arch I 2022, GSD
This is a work of allegorical short fiction that narrates a thought experiment under hypothetical extreme conditions. Though surreal in style, it incorporates allusions to the present COVID-19 pandemic where physical isolation makes media the only source of outside information and exacerbates the lack of communication among isolated people. Ever since the pandemic broke out, the world is becoming more panoptic and power is becoming more centralized. This parallel world, which may be viewed as a failed city by conventional standards, becomes shattered into fragmented realities and raises questions to respond to the question of where the boundary between the real and the virtual lies. It imagines a new world order that emerges from the disorder.
"Privilege and its Context in the Shaping of American Collegiate Architecture"
Rukshan Vathupola, M.Arch I 2020
In light of recent developments we have again been reminded of the connection between these schools, the influence of the wealthy and privileged few. Although colleges today are very much focused on establishing the image of a sensitive and diverse student body, higher education in America originated as centers of power for almost exclusively wealthy Anglo-Saxon Protestant men. It is really only in the last half century that higher education as an equal opportunity for all has been embraced by both the government and those education facilities themselves.
|
|
|
 Resource: Paprika? Collection of Resources
Varies
You can find Black Lives Matter Allies at YSoA's Guide to Allyship, BLM YSoA Graphics, and resource list under our Anti-racism resource page.
|
|
|
Resource: The 7 Circles of Whiteness
Alishia McCullough, Learning Tool, Medium
The seven circles of whiteness is a learning tool that puts a name to the myriad of ways that whiteness exist as a construct in American culture by highlighting specific behaviors and thinking patterns associated with each of the categories. The 7 Circles of Whiteness also explores the overlap within the way that whiteness exist. This learning tool uses the concept of a circle to represent the duality of sequence and overlap that exist within whiteness, which helps to unbind rigidity around the way that whiteness has historically been defined. The 7 Circles of Whiteness explores both the covert and overt ways that racism presents, and ends with the caveat that anti-racism is not a destination, but a continuous journey of learning and unlearning.
|
|
|
 ART@COVID.EDU: Studio Art MFAs and the Cost of Remote Learning
Date: 07/06/2020
Place: RSVP for meeting link
Time: 6pm (Eastern Time)
Description:
As the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates the racial, economic, and cultural inequities of our institutions, we witness the rumblings and eruptions of social movements that are changing the way we think and live.
Featuring concerned students from Columbia, Hunter, UCLA, UPenn, and Yale
Special Guests: A.K. Burns, Dana DeGiulio, D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem, Sharon Hayes, and Tausif Noor
|
|
|
Visit Paprika?'s home at: 
|
|
|
|
|
