Curry J. Hackett

Notes on Culture, Narrative, and Place

A lecture by transdisciplinary designer, public artist, and educator Curry J. Hackett, founder of Wayside on how Curry’s practice and research braids cultural and ecological narratives using quantitative data, oral history, and artificial intelligence.

Curry J. Hackett is a transdisciplinary designer, public artist, and educator. His practice, Wayside, synthesizes cultural and ecological narratives to envision meaningful work in the public realm. Noteworthy projects include the Howard Theatre Walk of Fame, the DC High Water Mark project. Hackett began his academic career in 2019 at his alma mater Howard University, and has since taught at Yale University, Carleton University, City College of New York, the University of Tennessee–Knoxville, and is a core member of the anti-racist design justice school Dark Matter U.

Currently, Curry is completing the master’s of architecture in urban design program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2022, Hackett was named an inaugural Journal of Architectural Education fellow and a finalist for the Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize. In 2023, Hackett won the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Creative Achievement Award for his “Subjective Waters” studio, which explored Black culture and water, and was named a grantee by the Graham Foundation for his ongoing research project, Drylongso, which explores relationships between Blackness, geography, and land.

Organized by the M.S. in Computational Design Practices Program.