Jennifer Newsom
University of Minnesota, Dream The Combine | The Bethune Lecture
October 21, 2020
6 pm - 7:30 pm
Architect and educator Jennifer Newsom presents this year's Bethune Lecture as she considers racial constructs in the built environment as openings for critical public engagement in design. Newsom is assistant professor of architecture with the University of Minnesota and co-founder of Dream The Combine, which creates art and architecture as sites of interaction.
AIA continuing education credits available: 1 LU
The Bethune Lecture celebrates leading women architects and is generously sponsored by the AIA Buffalo/Western New York.
"As an architect, I examine racial constructs in the context of built constructions, where these spatial metaphors act as mechanisms for engagement. People are the activating agents in my work, and their presence is needed for a reconsideration...of our bodies in relation to one another."
- Jennifer Newsom
Newsom's research lies in the space between real, tangible bodies made of flesh, steel, glass, etc, and the perception of these bodies through vision. As scholar, Sarah Lewis has noted: “Seeing has become a mode of reading the world. We make meaning of what we see through conditioned sight, and the question becomes what conditions the mode of seeing? When it comes to race and equity, this has become increasingly important to understand.” (Osterheldt)
Says Newsom, "As an architect, I examine racial constructs in the context of built constructions, where these spatial metaphors act as mechanisms for engagement. People are the activating agents in my work, and their presence is needed for a reconsideration, a 'reconditioning' to use Lewis’ term, of our bodies in relation to one another."
Through Dream The Combine, which was founded with Tom Carruthers in 2013, we have produced numerous site-specific installations in the U.S. and Canada. Each conflates what is real with what is imagined to create perceptual uncertainties that cast doubt on our “known” understanding of the world. They are images deconstructed sectionally, a three-dimensional expansion of their interior ambiguities.
(Citation: Osterheldt, Jeneé. “This is Sarah Lewis. You should know who she is.” Boston Globe, 24 April 2019. www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/04/24/sarah-lewis-delivers-art-black-life-vision-justice/tH4KWJvp4UJpf2T6snxULI/story.html. Accessed 25 April 2019.
Biography
Jennifer Newsom, architect and educator, comes to UB to deliver the 2020 Bethune Lecture. Photo by Martin Szabo
Jennifer Newsom is a licensed architect, artist, and co-founder (with Tom Carruthers) of Dream The Combine, based in Minneapolis, MN. She is Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture.
Dream The Combine’s work consists of large-scale, public art installations exploring metaphor, perceptual uncertainties, and the boundary between real and illusory space. They are winners of the 2018 Young Architects Program at MoMA PS1 for their installation Hide & Seek.
Dream the Combine has exhibited at MoMA and MoMA PS1 in New York, NY, and in Seattle WA, East Haddam CT, Vancouver BC, Rome Italy, Minneapolis MN and St. Paul MN. Their work has been published widely, including Metropolis Magazine, Architect, Log, Architectural Record, The Architects Newspaper, and Dezeen. They are currently at work on upcoming installations in Cincinnati OH, Wilkinsburg PA, and Columbus IN as recently announced winners of the 2020 J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize.
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