Germane Barnes to Present 'Trust Issues' Lecture in Fay Jones School Oct. 24

Josema Cutillas

Germane Barnes created a pop-up play pavilion called "Intersection" for Concéntrico, an international festival of architecture and design held in September in Logroño, Spain.

Germane Barnes will present a lecture at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 24, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the U of A campus, as part of the fall lecture series in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.

Barnes is the principal of Studio Barnes and is an assistant professor and the director of the Community Housing & Identity Lab at the University of Miami School of Architecture. Barnes' practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity, examining architecture's social and political agency through historical research and design speculation. Believing strongly in design as a process, he approaches each condition imposed on a project as an opportunity for transformation.

In his lecture, "Trust Issues," Barnes will explore how Studio Barnes builds bonds and relationships within its socially engaged practice. Featuring projects in Logrono, Spain; Miami, Florida; and Chicago, Illinois, this lecture highlights themes such as identity, collaboration and investment.

Tangent to the lecture is the film You Can Always Come Home, which furthers the investigation and liberation of Blackness in the architected environment. Inspired by the 2021 Architectural League Prize Housekeeping, which challenged participants to acknowledge systemic oppression in labor, gender and race, this film aims to dispel common tropes of trauma, pain and discrimination while promoting joy, delight and self-care.

Born in Chicago, Barnes received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Architecture from Woodbury University, where he was awarded the Thesis Prize for his project "Symbiotic Territories: Architectural Investigations of Race, Identity, and Community."

His work has recently been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art's groundbreaking 2020 exhibition, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, and the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial. He was a winner of the 2021 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers and is a 2021-2022 Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

His work has also been featured in international institutions, most notably MAS Context, Milan Design Week, San Francisco MoMA, LACMA, The Graham Foundation, The New York Times, Architect Magazine and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where he was identified as one of the future designers on the rise.

This is the June Biber Freeman Lecture in Architecture.

The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is limited. 

For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or fayjones.uark.edu.