Bethany Romanowski (background) and Sarah Scaturro work on the Marianne Lehmann Vodou Collection, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 2011. Photo: Sarah Scaturro, © Smithsonian Institution From July 11 to 24, 2011, Cooper-Hewitt Assistant Registrar Bethany Romanowski and I were in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as participants in the Smithsonian’s Haiti Cultural Recovery Program. The goal of the program is...

Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture at the Smithsonian will moderate a discussion with Atim Oton, co-founder of the Black Design News Network, and Amy Wilentz, author and journalist, about the design implications and opportunities arising from disaster relief efforts in Haiti. Among the efforts discussed are the "Haiti Cultural Recovery Project,"...

Design in the Face of Disaster, a discussion on how design can alleviate some of the innumerable problems facing Haiti right now. Watch a video of the program and check out our other past program videos on our video site. Panelists include Pierre Fouche, a Haitian earthquake engineer, Anna Muoio, Principal, Design Continuum, Social Innovation,...

I had the pleasure of meeting recently with Ton Vriens, a Dutch documentary filmmaker and journalist who, through his foundation Turtle Tree, is working with women in Haiti to develop a felt-making co-operative, with the goal of achieving economic and social independence for the members of the self-governed group. Haiti is one of the poorest...