Emergent Grounds was organized in June 2020 as the Alumni Collective in Solidarity/New Grounds for Design Education, and renamed Emergent Grounds in Design Education (EGDE) in August 2020. The Emergent Grounds collective is structured to ensure representation of diverse identities, institutions and professions within a democratized leadership structure. The Emergent Grounds Collection includes collected and indexed links to 45 online statements posted by groups of student, alumni and faculty at design education institutions in the US and Canada, in fields including architecture, landscape architecture, planning, interior design, urban design, preservation, architectural history and more. These statements were posted on purpose-built websites, on shared Google Docs, and on Instagram, usually in response to letters from institutional leaders addressing the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the protest movement that followed in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have collected PDF files of 33 of these statements thus far. They also have notes from interviews conducted with over a dozen students, faculty and leaders of organizations who participated in or were addressed by these statements, as well as correspondence between EMERGENT GROUNDS and these actors, and correspondence between the members of the collective.
Primary contacts: Michelle Barrett, Chris Daemmrich