Photography by Sara Pooley.
Reference Room
Our first-ever Reference Room was a public gathering space for people to experience some of the reading materials that have inspired Deem’s three issues. These books, articles, and essays represent a combination of our research, specific mentions from our pages, and recommendations from some of the contributors to our third issue, “Envisioning Equity.” It is our hope not only to provide context and access to educational tools around Deem’s processes and beliefs, but also to create a haven for reflection and repose.
The Reference Room was located at 939 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, and was open to the public from December 5 through December 19, 2021.
Accessibility Note: The Reference Room does not have stairs and offers one single occupancy restroom.
Follow us on Instagram for the latest news on the Reference Room. Visit our Are.na channel for a list of digital artifacts submitted by our contributors, or browse our catalog of books available at the space:
Adom Getachew, Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (2019)
Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1976)
Craig L Wilkins, The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on Race, Space, Architecture (2007)
Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves (1970)
Cedric J. Robinson, The Terms of Order: Political Science and the Myth of Leadership (1980)
Denise Scott Brown, Robert Venturi and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (1972)
Ilse Ouwens, Fabiola Camuti, Betje Steves, No School Manifesto: A Movement of Creative Learning (2020)
Joaquim Moreno, The University Is Now on Air, Broadcasting Modern Architecture (2018)
Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (2012)
John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets (1993)
Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture (1998)
Silvia Federici, Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethinking, Remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism (2019)
Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study (2013)
Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project (2002)
Nick Axel, Nikolaus Hirsch, Ann Lui, and Mimi Zeiger, Dimensions of Citizenship (2018)
Kathryn B. Hiesinger, Michelle Millar Fisher, Emmet Byrne, Maite Borjabad López-Pastor, and Zoë Ryan; With Andrew Blauvelt, Colin Fanning, and Orkan Telhan, Designs for Different Futures (2019)
Adrienne Marie Brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017)
Akwaeke Emezi, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir (2021)
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (2015)
Camilla Pang, Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us About Life, Love, and Relationships (2020)
Christopher Bracken, Magical Criticism: The Recourse of Savage Philosophy (2007)
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, Towards What Justice? Describing Diverse Dreams of Justice in Education (2018)
Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis, Mabel O. Wilson, Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present (2020)
João Biehl, Will to Live: AIDS Therapies and the Politics of Survival (2007)
Kenya Hara, Designing Design (2018)
New Red Order, Never Settle! (2019)
Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams (2002)
Shakti Gawain, Creative Visualization (1978)
Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, All Incomplete (2021)
The W.E.B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts, Whitney Battle-Baptiste, Britt Rusert, W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America (2018)
Annelys De Vet and Astrid Vorstermans, Design Dedication: Adaptive Mentalities in Design Education (2020)
Elyse A. Gonzalez and Sara Reisman, Mobilizing Pedagogy: Two Social Practice Projects in the Americas by Pablo Helguera with Suzanne Lacy and Pilar Riaño-Alcalá (2018)
Adrienne Marie Brown, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019)
Anais Duplan, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (2020)
Aracelis Girmay, Kingdom Animalia (2011)
Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery, Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times (2017)
Cruz Garcia & Nathalie Frankowski / WAI Architecture Think Tank, Narrative Architecture: A Kynical Manifesto (2020)
Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (1988)
James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998)
Kara Walker, Kara Walker: A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be (2021)
Kimberly Drew, Jenna Wortham, Black Futures (2020)
Pablo Helguera, Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook (2011)
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013)
Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist, The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present (2015)
Syan Rose, Our Work is Everywhere: An Illustrated Oral History of Queer and Trans Resistance (2021)
Annette Krauss, Binna Choi, Yolande van der Heide, Unlearning Exercises: Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning (2018)
Jan Boelen, Design as Learning: A School of Schools Reader (2018)
Arthur Jafa: A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions (2018)