Community, Connection and Conversation | Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel

On March 30, artist and designer Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel will speak on balancing work (a design/artist career) with life as a BIPOC individual; the importance of community; and navigating predominately white institutions and spaces as BIPOC designers/artists.

Lesley-Ann will speak as part of the Community, Connection, and Conversation lecture series — a guest-speaker series facilitated by the BIPOC Graduate Student Caucus. The series aims to provide pathways of support, connection and dialogue amongst the BIPOC Graduate Students of Emily Carr University of Art + Design with professionals in both design and art.

Lesley-Ann has a BA in Industrial Design from the Universidade Federal do Paraná, in Curitiba, Brazil. She has a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. She earned her PhD in Design from North Carolina State University in 2018.

Lesley-Ann practices design through emancipatory, critical, and anti-hegemonic lenses, focusing on equity, social justice, and the experiences of people who are often excluded from design research. Her research also highlights the work of designers outside of Europe and North America as an act of decolonizing design. She also attempts to promote greater critical awareness among designers and design students by introducing critical theory concepts and vocabulary into the design studio e.g. through The Designer’s Critical Alphabet.

Please note: This talk is open for all current Graduate Students at ECU.