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OU Architecture Professor featured in PBS News Hour Story on Greenwood Art Project

Deborah Richards.

OU Architecture Professor featured in PBS News Hour Story on Greenwood Art Project


Date

August 5, 2021

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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.

 

Richards' terracotta blocks displayed on a patio.

Examples of the 3d-printed terracotta blocks in Greenwood.


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