Scholar of architecture and race to visit campus in March
Renowned architect Mabel O. Wilson, widely recognized for her explorations of race, historical narratives, archives and the built environment, will visit campus as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large for a series of talks, classroom visits and seminars from March 4-8, including a keynote lecture on March 7.
Wilson, professor of architecture and African American and African diaspora studies at Columbia University, partnered with Sean Anderson, B.Arch./B.S. ’96, associate professor of architecture in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP), among others, on the 2021 exhibition “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
She also collaborated on the design team for the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia with J. Meejin Yoon, B.Arch ’95, the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of AAP, and Eric Höweler, B.Arch. ’94, M.Arch. ’96. Last year, Wilson, Yoon and Höweler revisited parts of the archive behind the memorial to create “unknown, unknown,” an immersive installation included in the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
“Mabel Wilson is a preeminent scholar whose powerful work reopens and reactivates the historical record, shedding new light on the past, calling into question our assumptions about the present and revealing possible futures,” Yoon said. “Her intersecting methods as a historian, designer and curator tell new stories, affirming a breadth of human experience that necessarily connects the past with the present moment. It is an honor and a pleasure to welcome Mabel to campus as A.D. White Professor-at-Large, and to our Cornell and AAP communities, where her contributions will no doubt add immense value for many years to come.”