Deborah Richards, Associate Professor of Architecture at OU, was recently featured in a PBS News Hour story on “How art is retelling powerful stories of Tulsa massacre, capturing community’s hopes.” The video was created for the 100-year anniversary of the massacre and highlights how art and history keep the memories of victims alive in the Tulsa community.
Along with artist Alexander Tamahn, Richards aims to connect the past to contemporary Black entrepreneurial spaces. They design and 3D-print large, terra-cotta blocks, a nod to Tulsa’s art deco tradition, to enhance today’s business spaces. Richards states, “The history of Greenwood is one of resilience and also building and rebuilding over time, because of what happened. And so we thought, how can we kind of build a workflow for this project for Tulsa that is about rebuilding and building and this ceramics history?”
The Greenwood Ceramic Storytelling Project has been featured in front of three businesses in Tulsa since May 25th, 2021.
For more information on the project, visit www.greenwoodartproject.org/, and to watch the PBS feature, visit www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-art-is-retelling-powerful-stories-of-tulsa-massacre-capturing-communitys-hopes.
Examples of the 3d-printed terracotta blocks in Greenwood.
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture congratulates Thinh "Henry" Duong, a master's student in the Division of Interior Design, for earning first place in the 2026 Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition.
Gibbs College of Architecture Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) Director and Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design (PLAD) faculty member Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., recently published a new book, Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Art Museum.
In May, students from the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture's Architecture, Environmental Design, and Interior Design programs participated in an intensive five-day Studio in Residence at Taliesin West, the iconic winter home and desert laboratory of Frank Lloyd Wright.
