“What Makes A House A Home,” a new public exhibition at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, ran in the colonnade and first floor of Cooper Union’s historic Foundation Building from February 3 through February 11, 2023. The exhibition was presented by The Cooper Union STEM Outreach, a program that helps introduce K-12 students to design and engineering, in partnership with the Black Housing Project (BHP), a consortium between DIVAS for Social Justice (DIVAS), and The Center for NYC Neighborhoods (the Center), and funded by The ABNY Foundation.
The Black Housing Project curriculum is designed by DIVAS for Social Justice to teach youth the importance of intergenerational wealth through homeownership. DIVAS worked directly with 3 schools in Southeast Queens (P.S 156, P.S 132, and The Linden SDA School). The curriculum written is to teach students from 3rd-12th grade. The project launched in Spring of 2022. Students learned about the path to homeownership. Also in the first installment of this project youth wrote essays that reflected, “What Makes A House A Home”. The goal of the writing prompt was to highlight the wonderful aspects of their homes , no matter where you live. So often, only the deficits in communities of color are given a media platform. While it is important to bring awareness about the inequities black and brown communities have faced with housing, it is just as important to highlight the beauty of these communities. It is the hope of DIVAS for Social Justice through this process that young people will stay and be the change of their neighborhood instead of leaving them.
During the summer of 2021, DIVAS for Social Justice hosted two students from the Cooper Union Service Scholars program who worked to develop an augmented reality lesson in conjunction with the Black Housing Project. The Cooper Union team visited the Garden Of Resilience and were inspired to create the StoryHouses that hold the stories of our youth. “What Makes A House A Home.” Dr. Elizabeth Waters was strategic in helping move the Black Housing Project to the next level.“When we were approached for this collaboration, I knew immediately that this was an opportunity for the high school and undergraduate students in the STEM program to engage in authentic human-centered design,” said Elizabeth Waters, Director of STEM Outreach at The Cooper Union. “At a glance, the story houses look simple, but they represent the deep learning that occurred as our students applied the engineering design process to create a product that was the best fit for DIVAS’s needs.” Dr. Waters also commissioned Wallace dos Santos to design the artwork that complemented the youth content. The artist was inspired by the fences that he saw living in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. In addition, his typography choices were inspired by Marsha Johnson and W.E Dubois. In addition an interactive chance to build your ideas for homeownership was created by Conrad Moore and Damani Laidlow.
On Thursday, February 9, 2023 students from the Linden SDA School visited the larger than life exhibit and were amazed. “I loved the design of the exhibit and how it was built. I was surprised when I saw our work with the design. I was very happy to see we were a part of something like that”, said Romae-I Williams of the Linden SDA School.
Samuel Martin, a sixth grader at the Linden SDA School shared, “ When I first saw our part, I was amazed and surprised. Cooper Union is a big fancy place and we’re an afterschool program. If a place like that can show our after-school program, it makes me believe anything is possible.”
The exhibition was also featured on NY1 and WABC. Parts of the exhibition will continue to be on display for Black History Month at DIVAS makerspace in Bedford Stuyvesant. The exhibition pieces will be placed in the windows so anyone walking by can interact with it.
