The New York-based curator and writer Antwaun Sargent, who recently joined Gagosian Gallery as a director, will lead a committee charged with reviewing a new grant programme that aims to uplift the work of emerging Black designers, launched by the Brooklyn Museum, Instagram’s Design studio and other partners.
The Black Design Visionaries initiative will award three $10,000 grants to Black designers aged 18 to 30 and one $100,000 small business grant to a Black-led design business ten years or younger.
“Design can be a source of empowerment and futurity but, in order for that to happen, it needs to be more inclusive of all,” Sargent says in a statement. “Design affects us all and it is important that Black designers have opportunities to help shape our notions of the world through designing what the world can do and be.”
Other members of the committee include the artist Rick Lowe, the celebrated costume designer Ruth Carter, the Harvard University professor Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, who founded the Vision and Justice photography and editorial initiative to explore the intersection of art and social justice activism, and the Elle Décor chief editor Asad Syrkett.
Submission will be accepted starting this week and will close on 16 July. The shortlist is slated to be announced in autumn this year.