School of Visual Arts (SVA) BFA Interior Design: Built Environments presents “An Infrastructure for Restorative Justice,” an exhibition of student work exploring a framework for designers of the built environment working to end mass incarceration. Curated by Darrick Borowski & Rik Ekstrom, the exhibition will be on view at the SVA Flatiron Gallery, December 1, 2022 – January 14, 2023. A reception will be held Wednesday, December 7, followed by an in-person lecture. For the lecture event, exhibition curators will present research, explorations and the resulting insights from the first two years of their ongoing design/research project of the same name. Advance registration is required to attend both events.

In the fall of 2019, New York City Council approved plans to close Rikers Island, one of the world’s largest and most notorious jails. The decision was the result of a long-fought, still ongoing battle to push the city toward reckoning with an unjust and demonstrably racist mass incarceration system. The City settled on a plan to replace the remote island complex with four borough-based jails that will adopt the newest best practices, as seen in more progressive northern European models, and be “safer, smaller and more humane.”

The following year saw Black Lives Matter protests erupt in cities around the world. Quarantined citizens were moved to march by the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Jacob Blake and more at the hands of police. For educators training future designers of the built environment, it became even more imperative to investigate how cities can be leveraged—streets, sidewalks, buildings and public places—to end mass incarceration, while promoting equity and beginning the process of healing in communities disproportionately affected by the carceral system. 

For the last two years, BFA Interior Design: Built Environments second-year students have been working to develop alternate solutions under the thesis that better prisons are not enough and cities can be improved. This initiative is framed as the urgent infrastructure project “An Infrastructure for Restorative Justice.” In this exhibition, large banners line the gallery’s walls, each displaying projects focused on design solutions concerning restorative justice. In one room, two projects have been realized and fabricated in 3D, and a second room showcases projected video from footage during protests in reaction to the murder of Floyd in the summer of 2020, as well as other examples of systemic racism and violence. Furniture is placed throughout the space and numerous copies of the corresponding text, An Infrastructure for Restorative Justice, are available to read.

The exhibition features work by Alicia Ng, Anabella Vilchis, Ariella Ahdut, Botao Wang, Brianna Toussaint, Camille Lyn-Morillo, Chuyan Zhou, Daniella Lun, Dingding Shi, Eunice Kim, Hsiang-Ting Huang, Huanyu Kuang, Jayden Perez, Jiabao Li, Jiaheng Wu, Jiamin Li, Ju Hyung Jeon, Junyan Lu, Meixi Xu, Qian Wang, Selin Ozderici, Shuangyu Xi, Siyu Liu, Stephanie Schiff, Sky Morales, Wenxi Liu, Xinze Li, Xiran Geng, Yongru Zong, Xueyi Wang, Yini Wang, Yoojin Lee, Yuanjun Chen, Yudi Chen, Yuhan Wang, Yunfei Zhang, Zicheng Xie and Ziheng Zhao, and was made possible in part by the Angelo Donghia Foundation.

The SVA Flatiron Gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 10:00am–6:00pm. In accordance with SVA COVID-19 protocols, in-person viewing is open to SVA students, faculty and staff. The public may attend the reception and lecture by showing proof of full vaccination (including booster, if eligible) and photo ID. All visitors to the SVA Flatiron Gallery must pre-register through an RSVP link no less than 48 hours prior to the selected event date and time. Proper masking is required.