MICROPOLITAN studio is a research-based art and design collective that creates experimental multimedia projects, public art installations, and architecture

We use color, materiality, data and performance to tell stories about bodies in space and the spaces around bodies.

PROJECTS


Public Art and Multimedia Installation (Ongoing)

Cambridge, MA. New York, NY. Los Angeles, CA.

Playgrounds and Fear is a multi-phase project that began in 2020. It explores the relationship between ubiquitous pieces of urban infrastructure and the unique memories they create. Through graphic and material experimentation we playfully reimagine the core elements of the playground—the slide, swing, seesaw, and superstructure—to provoke memories of play and risk taking.

This work examines how this small scale public space can hold complex socioeconomic and psychological narratives about the body and play and offers a counterpoint to the contemporary playground’s focus on risk reduction, injury prevention, and safety.
Competition Proposal, 2020

Boston, MA

“It’s about time” tells stories about food and recipes from local neighbors through an abstract mural that incorporates graphics derived from humanized data collected through direct engagement with the community. Food, in America, has been the cultural bridge to connect geographically, culturally, religiously, and ideologically diverse groups of people. Food is a candid exchange of culture, both literally and metaphorically. We celebrate food, story telling, and participatory design through an art piece that graphically manifests the culture of local food and the stories behind them.
Concept Design, 2020

Singapore

“The Queer Pedestal” is an art installation, and a public stage, for a series of art interventions by Singaporean Artists from the LGBTQ community. This project will take place in Speakers’ Corner at Hong Lim Park in the heart of the city. The installation would be part of a larger cultural initiative that will include a diverse list of these Artists to perform during the Ideas Festival in February 2020.

Academic Research, Video Installation, and Graphic Novel, 2020

Cambridge, MA

What if retreat was not an option? Every opportunity for retreat is inexorably tethered to the enterprise of boundary making, an action that separates regions regarded as secure from those that are considered vulnerable. The frontiers of ‘managed retreat’, promising stability and an escape from peril, preserve cycles of evacuation and migration from areas deemed ‘unsafe’ and perpetuates the drawing of perimeters of threat.

Academic Research, 2020

Cambridge, MA

The algorithms of neurofeedback using the EEG data (EEG biofeedback) are designed to measure the brain and provide a feedback for the viewer to train the brain and the body. A vast amount of research has been done on the therapeutic aspects and potentials of this instrument and the feedback for the body. How can this same process be used to create poetic patterns and monumentalize the brain, to reveal psychologies and identities in public space? This is a data visualization and a poetic translation of the process of making memories; creating a language which graphs the time, metaphorically freezes memories on the surface with the data of the brain, and metaphorically maps the network of this language on the network of the body and the nervous system.


NEWS


Diane E. Davis is a professor at Harvard GSD. With a background in sociology, she has investigated the relationships between urbanization and national development, comparative urban governance, socio-spatial practice in cities in conflict, urban violence, and new territorial manifestations of sovereignty.

Historias de inclusión y exclusión: ningún espacio es autónomo. Conversación con Diane Davis︎︎︎

“Amal will plant a tree in El Jardin de la Esperanza, 'a garden of hope' in Corona Park, which is being created in collaboration with Mujeres en Movimiento and Micropolitan Studio, and will remain long after she has gone."

Little Amal Walks NYC︎︎︎

"Our program incubates people by supporting projects at a point of growth or change, and by imparting practical knowledge and innovative thinking that critiques the extremes of traditional art institutions and start-up culture."

NEW INC︎︎︎

Select works by Delara and Jimmy were part of workshops and exhibitions led by Kevin Liu at Gallery a-83 in NYC and Harvard GSD in Cambridge, MA.

a83 Gallery︎︎︎

US Architects Declare is a network of architects organizing for radical change in the building sector around climate, social justice, and biodiversity.

US Architects Declare︎︎︎

Created by Arboleda, “The People’s Bus” is a retired city vehicle that has been transformed with input from New Yorkers into a community center on wheels to engage people in NYC’s civic life through beauty and joy. The exhibition at MFTA features works that trace Arboleda’s original designs of the bus and his collaborations with partner organizations, which have helped transform the ways the bus engages communities.

“Co-creating The People’s Bus”︎︎︎

"Our program incubates people by supporting projects at a point of growth or change, and by imparting practical knowledge and innovative thinking that critiques the extremes of traditional art institutions and start-up culture."

NEW INC︎︎︎

At Naya Studio, he manages a portfolio of projects that include a range of clients from enterprises like Google and Wayfair to individuals and design entrepreneurs. He contributes to marketing efforts, business strategy, social media, and ecosystem growth initiatives.

Naya Studio︎︎︎

At Sage and Coombe, he leads the communications and marketing efforts, including new business proposals, press management, and social media.

Sange and Coombe︎︎︎

Architecture, like fashion, performs as an extended skin for the body through materiality. In an era where the status of public space is called into question, how can this skin be refashioned to operate as both a screen and a monument in order to address issues of identity and expression in public space?

"Sensing Bodies", Paprika︎︎︎

"It is a unique experience for co-op students [Innovation Fellows] to turn the current COVID-19 crisis into an innovation opportunity and to create insights and future thinking that could inform a variety of industries as more disruptions through pandemics and climate changes are expected over our lifetimes."

Future Lab︎︎︎

"There is a certain allure to numbers — clarity, coherence, control. They can be understood quickly, are used to assess aptitude, and assert confidence in decisions. In short, numbers calibrate uncertainty into momentary absolutes. Their abstracted sense of order helps explain complex issues and reduce esoteric crises into digestible approximations, but we must not forget, numbers are also interpretations tangled in complicated dynamics of power. As Sally Engle Merry notes, in her book The Seductions of Quantification, while “quantification is seductive” it is crucial to interrogate the origins of this form of knowledge..."

Resilience Quarterly, Urban Systems Lab, The New School︎︎︎

Design Impact is a global design leadership speaker series sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Design Alumni Council. These virtual events bring together outstanding rosters of global leaders to share their work and vision, challenging us as a global community to use design as a tool for actionable, transformative change, and healing. Design Impact is co-sponsored by the Harvard Alumni Association, the Harvard Alumni Architectural and Urban Society and AIA Los Angeles. This ongoing series is free and open to all.

Design Impact︎︎︎

"Virtual Workshop proposed for Harvard's DDYA studio for Local Teens about research on Architecture, Materiality, Poetry and Masks."

Design Discovery Young Adult, Harvard GSD︎︎︎

"In response to the global shift towards social isolation, our Spring 2020 colloquium will adapt to a ‘symposium-as-publication’ to replace the traditional means of conversation of an in-person conference format. We will employ two mediums of exhibition—a virtual gallery accompanied by a student-run print publication..."

Design Research Forum, Harvard GSD︎︎︎

"Building upon NTU CCA Singapore’s research theme, “Climates. Habitats. Environments.,” and IdeasCity’s exploration of the role of art and culture beyond the walls of the museum, IdeasCity Singapore will examine the urgency of solidarity structures in negating climate change and its impact on Southeast Asia and communities worldwide. IdeasCity Singapore will include..."

IdeasCity Singapore, The New Museum︎︎︎

This exhibition features work by students in the Harvard Graduate School of Design course SCI-6317 Material Systems: Digital Design and Fabrication led by Nathan King, DDes and Lecturer in Architecture in collaboration with the Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard.

Material Systems exhibition, Office for the Arts at Harvard︎︎︎

project Gestural Surface selected for Harvard Arts First Festival, (festival canceled due to Covid-19 pandemic)

Gestural Surface︎︎︎

"Normal water is water that behaves. It is a water that is tame. There is nothing to fear, since it is not threatening. It does not violate the boundaries that the built environment has set for it. Water is held behind dams, kept out behind levees, rainscreened, conveyed to drainage outlets on street corners, and only allowed into our sacred space of home if we choose to open the tap or flush the toilet..."

UD:ID Territories, Harvard GSD︎︎︎

"Platform represents a year in the life of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Produced annually, this compendium highlights a selection of work from the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and design, and design engineering, and exposes a rich and varied pedagogical culture committed to shaping the future of design."

Platform 12, Harvard GSD︎︎︎

TEAM




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