Past
Traversal Residency: Kelly Walters
With a Cast of Colored Stars with Kelly Walters
01 – 17 June 2022
Presented as part of Traversal Residency Series co-presented in partnership with the Public Visualization Lab and Trinity Square Video; funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
We are so excited to welcome Kelly Walters as our next Traversal artist-in-resident program titled “With a Cast of Colored Stars”, who will be with us until June 17!
“With a Cast of Colored Stars” explores the evolution of racialized iconography in Black popular entertainment. This body of work will look closely at early forms of graphic design in the United States and Canada that were complicit in shaping visual representations of Blackness and Black culture. “With a Cast of Colored Stars” challenges us to reckon with how particular language and imagery contributed to racial stereotypes and what cultural symbols have “defined Blackness” as we know it today. Through remix and reinterpretation, this artwork will act as an educational platform for cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogue on Black representation as it connects to the history of mainstream print media.
Biographies
Kelly Walters
Kelly Walters is a designer, educator and founder of the multidisciplinary design studio Bright Polka Dot. In her ongoing design research, she interrogates the complexities of identity formation, systems of value, and shared vernacular in and around Black visual culture. In 2021, she was a recipient of a Graham Foundation Exhibition award in support of her curated exhibition With a Cast of Colored Stars. She is the author of Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators: Conversations on Design and Race and the co-editor of The Black Experience in Design. Kelly is currently an Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the BFA Communication Design Program at Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York.