A Designer’s Look Into Public Art and Activism

With the pandemic, Black Lives Matter, and the election already underway, how does art in public spaces influence how we design in our own communities?

Join us for a night with Conrad Benner (Street Arts Blogger), Jane Golden (Mural Arts Program), and Nile Livingston (Mural Artist & Graphic Designer) as they discuss guerilla style street art, a more administrative approach to public art, and a combination of the two.

This event is pay what you wish with 50% of the proceeds distributed to the AIGA Scholarship Fund. The AIGA Philadelphia Scholarship Fund is an annual scholarship program that will support local design students by awarding financial assistance to pursue their education. Learn more.

UPDATE: Due to recent events in Philadelphia, we will be matching and donating the other 50% of tonight's proceeds to the Phildelphia Bail Fund.

Moderator - Keith Kreisel

Keith Kreisel (he/him) is a brand manager, designer, speaker, and adventurer. Originally from a little town in south-central Pennsylvania, Keith’s has now called Philadelphia home for the past six years. Currently, he works as a senior designer and brand manager for a global, billion-dollar automotive engineering design brand. He is part of a team that maintains 7 sub-brands’ stories, design systems, and overall brand experience.

In his spare time, Keith advocates for human-centered design and in-house design teams. He volunteers his time as the Program Director for the Philadelphia chapter of AIGA focusing the programming to create institutional change and creating relevancy to our community. In his free time, Keith shoots lifestyle and landscape photography.

Panelist One - Nile Livingston

Nile Livingston is a native of Philadelphia whose ancestral roots in the city go back three generations. They hold a BA in Studio Art from Kutztown University where they studied large-scale metal fabrication and now they work across an array of media, including computer graphics and mural arts. Livingston founded Creative Repute, LLC Graphic Design Agency in 2017 where they work with a team of other creatives. In 2020 Creative Repute was awarded a silver medal from the global Indigo Awards for exceptional work and has been recognized by the Philadelphia Business Journal. Livingston’s work as an artist has been recognized by Rad Girls, an organization that celebrates women’s accomplishments and The Colored Girls Museum, the only institution in the US exclusively dedicated to the history of black girls in America. Livingston has worked on over 20 murals throughout the city of Philadelphia. In their spare time, Livingston’s civil involvement includes serving in the Walnut Hill Community Association in their neighborhood.

Panelist Two- Conrad Benner

Conrad Benner is the Founder of StreetsDept.com. A Fishtown, Philadelphia born-and-raised photo-blogger, curator, and podcaster, Conrad’s work explores art, our public space, and the creative minds shaping the world around us. Conrad’s blog has been named one of the ‘Best Blogs for Travellers’ by The Guardian, and his photography highlighted by Mashable and Instagram, as well as printed in Time Magazine and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Winner of the Philadelphia Geek Award for ‘Geek Culture Journalism’ (2011), Conrad was named ‘Best Art Curator’ by Philadelphia Magazine (2014), ‘Rad Guy of the Year’ at the 3rd Annual Rad Awards (2017), and one of ‘The 76 Most Influential People in Philadelphia’ by Philadelphia Magazine (2020).

Conrad has used his growing influence not only to celebrate Philly’s burgeoning arts scene, but also to affect change. Most notably with his successful #SEPTA247 campaign, in 2014, which pushed the South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) to reintroduce overnight weekend service to Philadelphia’s elevated and subway trains. As well as with his work on Next Stop: Democracy, a Knight Cities Challenge winning project, which aims to increase voter turnout in Philly with the help of local artists. And his work in 2016 with Covenant House Pennsylvania to create #AmICutOut, a pop-up art installation to help raise awareness and money to end youth homelessness in Philadelphia. And in the Trump-era, with his work co-organizing Signs of Solidarity, an inauguration day public art protest in opposition to hate and in protest of any and all that embolden divisiveness; co-organizing Collective Action, a silent art auction which raised over $23k for 10 local and national social justice organizations; and curator and organizer of Revolutionary: A Pop-Up Street Art Exhibition, a six-week exhibition, commissioned by Visit Philadelphia, which featured the work of 13 contemporary Philly-based artists who are challenging the current political and social status quo installed at 13 locations across Philadelphia’s Historic District.

Panelist Three - Jane Golden

Jane Golden has been the driving force of Mural Arts Philadelphia since its inception in 1984, overseeing its growth from a small city agency into the nation’s largest public art program and a global model for transforming public space and community through art. Under Golden’s direction, Mural Arts has created over 4,000 works of public art through innovative collaborations with community-based organizations, city agencies, nonprofit organizations, schools, the private sector, and philanthropies. Reimagining the intersection of art and public space to address societal challenges, she has developed groundbreaking programs that transform practice and policies related to youth education, restorative justice, environmental issues and behavioral health. Golden has overseen a series of increasingly complex, ambitious, and award-winning public art projects, and launched the knowledge-sharing Mural Arts Institute in 2017 to help guide best-practices across the globe. Sought after nationally and internationally as an expert on urban transformation through art, Golden has received numerous awards for her work, including the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship Award, the Philadelphia Award, the Hepburn Medal from the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center at Bryn Mawr College, the Philadelphia Sketch Club Medal and Philadelphia Magazine’s Trailblazer Award. In 2018, she received the Anne d’Harnoncourt Award for Artistic Excellence from the Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia, and the Dare to Understand Award from the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and serves on the Mayor’s Cultural Advisory Council, the Penn Museum Advisory Committee, and the board of directors of The Heliotrope Foundation.

When & Where

Wed, Oct 28, 2020 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM EDT