Making Home with Data Lecture WITH Mona Chalabi and SITU RESEARCH in conversation with Christina L. De León

The Making Home lecture series at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union presents four free public lectures featuring Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial exhibition participants paired with designers, artists, professionals, and Cooper Union faculty discussing the exhibition’s exploration of home and its relation to design, data, justice, history, and building.

For the first program in the series, Making Home with Data, data journalist Mona Chalabi and representatives from the visual investigation practice SITU Research will discuss their installation “Patterns of Life” in the exhibition Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. Their work examines the impact of domicide—the destruction of civilian housing during military conflict—highlighting its profound effects on communities and international efforts to raise awareness of this pressing issue.

The program will be moderated by Christina L. De León, co-curator of Making Home— Smithsonian Design Triennial.

Please note: This program is located offsite at the Great Hall in The Cooper Union Foundation Building. See address and location information below.

SPEAKERS

Mona Chalabi is an award-winning writer and illustrator. Using words, color, and sound, Chalabi rehumanizes data to help us understand our world and the way we live in it. Her work has earned her a Pulitzer Prize, a fellowship at the British Science Association, an Emmy nomination, and recognition from the Royal Statistical Society. In recent years, her art has been exhibited at the Tate, the Brooklyn Museum, the Design Museum, and the House of Illustration. She studied international relations in Paris and Arabic in Jordan.

Chalabi works beside windows, sometimes in her hometown, London but usually in Brooklyn where she is writing a book about the ways we talk about money. It has been optioned by A24 as a documentary series. She is also the executive producer and creative director of an upcoming animated TV show with Ramy Youssef, A24, and Amazon Studios. Her writing and illustrations have been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Guardian where she is currently the data editor. Her video, audio, and production work has been featured on Netflix, NPR, the BBC, and National Geographic.

Gauri Bahuguna is a computational designer and Deputy Director at SITU Research. In her current role, Gauri makes complex human rights cases accessible to wider audiences by wrangling large and diverse datasets into visually compelling formats like interactive web platforms, large-scale drawings, and videos. Projects she has led include an investigation on human rights violations against protesters in Sudan, and evidentiary presentations of ISIL’s crimes against humanity in Iraq. Additionally, Gauri has previously taught at the Cooper Union School of Art, and given lectures at Carnegie Mellon, NYU, and The Pratt Institute.

Martina Duque Gonzalez is an Architectural Designer from Mexico City, based in New York City. Her work and research focus on the intersection between Architecture, Performance, and Human Rights Research. She has collaborated on multiple occasions with SITU/Research, one of the leading firms in the field of Visual Investigations, where she has worked as a Researcher, Modelmaker, and Designer for an investigative video piece and for a museum exhibition. She is also a studio assistant for the artist Tania Bruguera, whose multi-media work focuses on the relationship of performance and politics. In Theater, Martina has worked as a Set and Projection Designer both Off-Broadway and at NYU. She graduated from The Cooper Union with a Bachelor of Architecture Degree and a Minor in “History and Society,” with a focus on Performance Studies. Her interdisciplinary interests have resulted in work in various fields.

Christina L. De León (Moderator) is Associate Curator of Latino Design and the Acting Deputy Director of Curatorial at Cooper Hewitt. Her research focuses on the design and decorative arts of the Americas. De León has held previous positions at the Americas Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

AccessibiliTy & What to Expect

Format: The program will begin with a brief welcome, then the speakers will engage in a moderated conversation. It will end with an optional Q&A with the audience. 
About the space: This program will take place offsite at the Great Hall in The Cooper Union Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, New York, NY 10003. It is wheelchair accessible (via elevators and ramps).
Accommodations: For any questions about accessibility, please email Mauricio Higuera at mauricio.higuera@cooper.edu.
Recording: The program will be recorded and posted on Cooper Hewitt’s YouTube channel within three weeks.

Support

Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial is presented in collaboration with Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This project received federal support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum; the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the National Museum of the American Latino; the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center; and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Generous support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Support is also provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation; Edward and Helen Hintz; re:arc institute; the Keith Haring Foundation; the Lemberg Foundation; Maharam; and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Logos for Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, Henry Luce Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, re:arc institute, and ; the Keith Haring Foundation.