Legends 2021: Action Now for a More Diverse Pratt

Legends 2021

Actions Now for a More Diverse Pratt

Legends 2021 aired on October 7 at 7 PM EDT. Segments of the evening are included below. For the full experience, please watch the last video in this collection.

Support Legends Student Scholarships

To make a contribution to Legends 2021 and scholarships that support diversity at Pratt, visit giving.pratt.edu/legends.

About the Honorees

Sir David Adjaye OBE

Sir David Adjaye OBE, founder of Adjaye Associates, is an internationally acclaimed Ghanaian-British architect known for his ingenious use of materials and sculptural ability. His projects range from private houses, bespoke furniture collections, product design, exhibitions, and temporary pavilions to major arts centers, civic buildings, and master plans. His most well known commission to date, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, opened in 2016 and was named cultural event of the year by The New York Times. In 2017, Adjaye was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and recognized as one of the 100 most influential people of the year by Time magazine. In 2021, he was announced winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, one of the highest honors in British architecture.

Deborah Willis, MFA ’79

Deborah Willis, PhD, is university professor and chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship and Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, among others. Professor Willis’s curated exhibitions include: Framing Moments in the KIA, Migrations and Meanings in Art, and Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits at the International Center of Photography; Out of Fashion Photography; Framing Beauty at the Henry Art Gallery; and Reframing Beauty: Intimate Moments at Indiana University.

About the Presenters

Sarah Lewis

Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is an associate professor in the Departments of History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the founder of the Vision and Justice Project. Lewis is the author of The Rise (Simon & Schuster, 2014) and co-editor of an anthology on the work of Carrie Mae Weems (MIT Press, 2021). Her forthcoming publications include Caucasian War (Harvard University Press, 2022), The Vision and Justice Project (One World/Random House), and a manuscript on the “groundwork” of contemporary arts in the context of Stand Your Ground Laws. She received the 2022 Arthur Danto/ASA Prize, and was the inaugural recipient of the Freedom Scholar Award, which honors her body of work and its “direct positive impact on the life of African-Americans.”

Pascale Sablan, Barch ’06

Pascale Sablan, founder and executive director of Beyond the Built Environment, LLC., has a distinct ability to engage communities, uncover their cultural narratives, and deliver a built environment that responds to a diverse set of needs. As associate at Adjaye Associates, she is leading the National Palace of Haiti design team and the St. Elizabeth project’s community engagement strategies. Sablan has lectured at institutions such as the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the United Nations Visitor Center, and at universities and colleges across the United States. She was awarded the 2021 AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. Award, ascended to the AIA College of Fellows, and, in 2020, was voted president-elect of the National Organization of Minority Architecture, the fifth woman to hold the position.