MASD behind the scenes: Spring 2025
Beautiful photos, inky fingers, walking trips and community gatherings
⭐ Please join us to celebrate and reflect on this unique year in MASD: Our year-end grad show, Social Design Exchange 2025, is on April 24 from 5-9pm at The Peale, Baltimore’s Community Museum. We'll be showing off our capstone work, releasing a book, going behind the scenes of the program, and reflecting on the future of social design in this moment. Streaming is available. RSVP and agenda: https://sdx2025.eventbrite.com/ ⭐
Dear all,
We have a motto in studio this week: No New Things. I think we pushed it as far as we could go with the new things – seven months! – and now we’re finally working to narrow, close, finish. Here’s some of what was new to us this spring:
Our 2024-25 Designer-in-Residence Sloan Leo Cowan hosted a lecture and community dinner gathering with us in March, inviting us to consider the meal as social technology and a site for social change. (That event was documented by Side A Photography)
We organized a walking tour in Middle East Baltimore with Marisela Gomez, the community activist and physician-scientist whose work to organize VOLAR has transformed the way we think about community power.
We planned trips to DC and Philadelphia to expand our understanding of the social design landscape. In DC, we met with our collaborators at The Lab @ DC and alum Rhea Gupta ‘22 at AARP. In Philadelphia, we’ll be learning from alum Devika Menon ‘17 at the city’s service design studio.
Speaking of alumni, we invited Becky Slogeris '12, Mira Azarm '13, Kayla Joy ‘16, Francesca Bonifacio '20, and Thomas Cudjoe ‘23 to join us for an alumni lunch to help us explore professional possibilities.
We really leaned into printmaking: Allison Tipton of the Globe at MICA helped us to design and print our Social Design Exchange posters. Kyle Van Horn at Baltimore Print Studios hosted us for a risograph workshop where we printed postcards that will be included in a book we’re publishing this month about social design today.
We hosted an open studio for prospective members of the MASD ‘26 class, showing off current work, speaking honestly about the program experience and learning more about the folks who are interested in joining us. (We’ve updated our website to be more accessible to folks who are curious about the program - let us know what you think.)
And - of course - everyone has been advancing their capstone and fellowship projects, which has represented the largest ongoing body of work for us this semester.
Social Design Now: Reflections and Speculations from MICA MASD
I received a faculty grant from MICA last fall to document this unique year in the program. With the leadership of Kennedy McDaniel ‘22, we’ve organized a collection of essays, photographs and conversations that reflect on our year and speculate on the future of social design. This publication will be available at Social Design Exchange.
For now - No (more) New Things.
We invite you to join us in moving towards clarity, simplicity and peace.
Christina Jenkins (bio), MASD interim director ‘24-25; with
Students Alston Watson, Audrey Randazzo, Carley Bran, DJ Fleming, Kaelyn Ching, Mashal Zahra, Shannon Willing (MASD ‘25); Imani Jackson, Beth Pieper (MASD ‘26); and
Faculty Ana Mengote Baluca (MASD ‘23) and Dai Danhi (MASD ‘22)
Remembering Kim Domanski
As COO of The Peale, Baltimore’s Community Museum, Kim Domanski inspired us to choose The Peale as the site of this year’s Social Design Exchange. She led a tour of the museum for us, and worked closely with Christina on the plans for our event in April. We were so saddened to learn of her passing in March. Please read this remembrance to learn more about her vast legacy and impact on the Baltimore arts community.