The Deem Distinguished Lecture at West Virginia University will this year be given on March 28 by Antionette Carroll, the founder, president and chief executive officer of Creative Reaction Lab, a nonprofit educating and deploying youth leadership to challenge racial inequities impacting Black and Latinx populations.
Carroll founded CRL in response to the unrest in Ferguson, MO in August 2014 in the form of a 24-hour design challenge. From the first lab focused on racial inequality and police brutality, all five pitched projects were activated throughout the St. Louis region: Cards Against Brutality, Connected for Justice, Look Beyond Your Fear Guerilla Art Warfare, Vibe Switch Campaign and The Red Table Project. These projects ranged from public art efforts to educational programs.
In her role as founder, president and CEO, Antionette has pioneered a new, award-winning form of creative problem solving called Equity-Centered Community Design – named a Fast Company World Changing Idea Finalist in General Excellence and Urban Design. Through this capacity, Carroll has received several recognitions and awards including being named a 2018 Echoing Green Global Fellow, TED Fellow and Camelback Ventures Fellow.
Additionally, in 2014, Carroll was named the Founding Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force of the Professional Association of Design. Currently, she’s an AIGA National Board Director and Chair Emerita of the Task Force working on long-term strategic initiatives such as the Design Census Program with Google and national Design for Inclusivity Summit with Microsoft. She’s the co-founder of the Design + Diversity Conference and Fellowship.
Carroll is an international speaker and facilitator, previously speaking at TED, Capital One, Harvard, Stanford University, Microsoft, NASA, TEDxHerndon and TEDxGatewayArch, AIGA National Conference, The Ohio State University, and more.
Carroll’s talk will be hosted at 5 p.m. in Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre at WVU’s Creative Arts Center. The event is free and open to the public. Carroll’s talk serves as the keynote address of the Designing Across Divides conference in WVU’s School of Art and Design.
Funded by Patrick and Alison Deem, the Deem Distinguished lecture began more than 20 years ago. The annual event helps further the WVU education experience by exposing students and faculty to cutting-edge artists and arts supporters.
The talk is also part of the WVU College of Creative Arts Curiosity Series, a sampling of the diverse art events that happen in the college each year. These events feature students, faculty and internationally acclaimed guest artists hosted by the School of Art & Design, School of Music and School of Theatre & Dance. Exhibitions at the Art Museum of WVU feature artists from West Virginia and around the world.