Community-based Practices

Community-based practices provide the foundation for much of my research and creative work. Through long-term partnerships, participatory methods, and collaborative decision-making, I work with communities to identify shared goals, elevate local knowledge, and co-create public-facing outcomes.

These projects involve storytelling, relationship-building, facilitation, and collective reflection, resulting in installations, exhibitions, visual systems, and community-centered interventions.

Methods of Inquiry

Projects are shaped through a range of qualitative and participatory research methods selected to fit the context and goals of each collaboration. My process may include stakeholder mapping, community recruitment, listening sessions, focus groups, archive research, oral histories, co-creation workshops, and collaborative assessment. Together, these methods help surface local knowledge, document lived experiences, build shared understanding, and evaluate the impact of the work over time.

From practice to publication: Reflections on relational labor, shared authorship, play, and long-term assessment published in CoDesign Journal

Gathering LGBTQ Oral Histories of Eastern North Carolina: An Open Call to Share Stories and Shape History

LGBTQ Archival Project Receives Funding from the Engagement Scholarship Consortium

Assessing Impact in the City of We: Observations, Interviews, Surveys, and the Power of Community Relationships

Making the City of We: A Community Co-Creation Workshop

Design & Action: Students Create Campaigns about Social Justice, Diversity, Anti-racism, and Equity and Learn how to Measure the Societal Impacts of their Work

Co-Creation and Participatory Design in Public Art: Uncovering Community Narratives

A Blended Perspective: A Publication in the Scholarly Journal, Dialectic, AIGA Design Educators Community

Citizen Makers Workshop at the 20th Anniversary National Gathering of Imagining America

Design Activism and Impact in the Classroom: Presenting at CAA 2019 with Design Incubation Panel in New York

Design for Good: Students Work with Shelby County Health Department to Raise Awareness around the Opioid Crisis

Public Art Installation activates the new extension of the Greenline to promote the space and encourage Social Interaction and Activity among Pedestrians

Graphic Design Students work with Loeb Properties to Create Public Art Tour in Overton Square

From Design as Artifact to Design as Process: Applying an Open Model to Community Engagement in Social Design

Place-based workshop captures essence of local neighborhood discussions during the Art and Place Conference in Memphis

Crosswalks in the Park: Civic-Minded Improvements

What is Creative Placemaking?

Clothing, Food, Shelter: A Collaborative Project investigating concepts of identity and place

The Revival of the Chelsea Flood Wall: Community activates Future Site of the Greenline

Presenting research on social design assessment strategies for graphic design programs at the 2015 AIGA Design Educators Conference in Toronto

A Catalyst for Change: An Examination of Citizen-driven Placemaking (CDP)

Community Members fight blight in South Memphis

Advertising Design and Sustainable Design Students Fight Gun Violence with Guerrilla Awareness Campaign

Design for Social Impact: Thrive in Helena, AR, a small Rural American Town