2026 2025

DESIGNING FOR
DIGNITY 04

On October 24, 2026, the MCA Chicago will host Deem Journal’s fourth annual symposium. Designing for Dignity 04: A Convening of Possibilities will present a day of hybrid in-person and online programming that positions and considers dignity as a foundational principle of design.

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Participants
Scott Vincent Campbell +
Joseph Archie Cuillier III +
Brendan Fernandes +
Curry J. Hackett +
jada-amina +
Kahlil Joseph +
Elijah McKinnon +
Ari Melenciano +
Patricia Nguyen +
Shani Vanessa Peters +
Kameelah Janan Rasheed +
Carrie Sandahl +
Debra Yepa-Pappan +

Program
Friday October 23, 2026

Film Screening & Conversation

BLKNWS: TERMS & CONDITIONS (2025), Directed by Kahlil Joseph

Adapted from Kahlil Joseph’s acclaimed video art installation, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (2025) marks the artist’s feature directorial debut. Spanning 247 years, the film weaves together historical and fictional figures, archival footage, and social media fragments to construct a sweeping portrait of Black consciousness and diasporic memory.

Following the screening, Joseph will be in conversation with curator and cultural worker Jada-Amina to discuss his approach to the archive, the mechanics of fragmentation, and the urgent necessity of building institutional models that center Black stories on Black terms.

Saturday October 24, 2026

Keynote

EMBODIED PERSPECTIVES: THE BODY REMEMBERS BEFORE WE DO

Brendan Fernandes

The urgency and generosity that move through Brendan Fernandes's work have proven the transformative power of embodied practice to imagine freedom. Fernandes speaks, moves, and gathers audiences in a participatory keynote that reframes institutions as living, breathing spaces built on dignity, care, and belonging.

Dialogue

RENDERINGS, REHEARSALS, AND PROJECTIONS: CONJURING DESIRED FUTURES

Curry J. Hackett, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Patricia Nguyen, moderated by Ari Melenciano

Futures are not only predicted. They are rehearsed, rendered, prototyped, and practiced into being. Across art, design, fiction, architecture, and world-building, practitioners are creating tangible encounters with what has not yet arrived, giving form to new social relations, cultural possibilities, and ways of living.

Moderated by Ari Melenciano, this conversation brings together Curry J. Hackett, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Patricia Nguyen to explore how distinct creative practices render our futures experiential.

Rather than treating imagination as abstraction, the panel interrogates how speculative work can operate as a methodology, a way to test ideas, challenge inherited systems, and invite people to navigate alternative realities.

Practice Activation

TBD
The Black School (Shani Vanessa Peters Cuillier + Joseph Archie Cuillier III

TBD

Dialogue

BUILDING OTHERWISE: ART, MEMORY, AND THE FUTURE OF INSTITUTIONS

Debra Yepa-Pappan, Carrie Sandahl, and Scott Vincent Campbell, moderated by Elijah McKinnon

The word "institution" is a weighty one, carrying the burdens of history, bureaucracy, permanence, and power. But here in Chicago, institutions have also been built through improvisation, mutual aid, cultural stewardship, neighborhood memory, and acts of collective imagination. In dialogue with Deem Journal's forthcoming issue, Inventing the Institution, Chicago-based practitioners Debra Yepa-Pappan, Carrie Sandahl, and Scott Vincent Campbell come together in conversation, moderated by Elijah McKinnon, to examine how institutions are made, maintained, challenged, and transformed. Together, they consider what Chicago's artists, organizers, designers, and cultural workers can teach us about building institutions that prioritize dignity, equity, and imagination, instead of preserving the status quo.

Endnote

TBD

Designing for Dignity 04: A Convening of Possibilities is made possible with support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Graham Foundation, and Eames Institution.

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DESIGNING FOR DIGNITY 04

DESIGNING FOR
DIGNITY 04