Building HueSpaces is a series that centers the creation of museums and other arts enclaves founded and led by Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latine, and all People of Color. Created through partnership between Museum Hue and American Institute of Architects (AIA) NY Cultural Facilities Committee, this five-part series highlights topics such as assessing capital needs for your organization, capital fundraising, building your capital project team, accessibility as a foundation for your project, and more. Designed to provide greater insight into how these spaces were acquired and their capital projects developed, it demonstrates the critical need for greater racial equity and representation within NYC’s built environment and arts landscape. Through case studies of select NYC-based arts entities this series will provide a step-by-step toolkit to support other arts entities founded and led by arts and cultural leaders of color who are seeking guidance on how to attain a brick and mortar of their own.

Building HueSpaces stems from the research findings and recommendation in the HueArts NYC Brown Paper report led by Museum Hue, which highlights a greater need in investing in place as a long-term strategy for Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latine, and all People of Color arts stability and thrivability.

All Building HueSpaces events will have live captioning and transcripts available with the release of the recording.

Session I: Visioning

So you want to build an arts space for your non-profit? Great - now how do you even begin? In this initial session of Building HueSpaces, we will explore how to start a capital project. We will cover determining what is needed in terms of building a new structure, renting and renovating an existing building, or considering other alternatives for your organization’s needs. During this session, you will learn to identify what information you will need to have on hand to begin this work, how to assess what kind of a space you need, how to write a scope of work for your project, and how to begin looking for funding for this work. Attendees will hear from architects, Latoya Nelson Kamdang and Nandini Bagchee, as well as David Dean, arts administrator, and Pres Adams, Senior Community Investment Officer for LISC NY.

This session will be moderated by Museum Hue and AIA. This session’s resources and recording will be made available one week following the live session.

Panelists

David Dean has over 40 years of experience as an arts administrator, strategic planner, and non-profit fundraiser. He was the Executive Director of Printed Matter for five years and has worked for a range of other organizations in both the United Kingdom — where he was born and educated — and the United States, including Queens Museum of Art, Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education, The French-American Foundation, The English National Opera, and The National Trust. His current and recent clients include City Lore, Poster House New York, the Center for Italian Modern Art, the Association for Cultural Equity, The Hispanic Society, The Camargo Foundation, Flushing Town Hall, Young New Yorkers, and the Bronx Documentary Center. David has had a key role on fundraising for and implementation of a range of capital projects, including at Queens Museum where he had a leadership role in the museum’s expansion. He is a graduate of Goldsmiths, University of London.

Latoya Nelson Kamdang is a Registered Architect and Interior Designer, a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar, and a 2022 Crain’s New York Business Notable Women in Construction, Design, & Architecture. Her experience spans architecture, planning, exhibit design, interior design, and design strategy. Latoya has been working simultaneously as a Visiting Associate Professor at Pratt Institute for over ten years. She educates students on interdisciplinary design approaches. She has a research focus on participatory design processes, impacts of displacement on authentic communities, passive sustainable technologies, and indigenous architecture. Latoya earned a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design as well as a Certificate in Real Estate Design & Development from the Wharton School of Business. She also has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Interior Architecture from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Marketing from Georgetown University. She currently is on the board of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, The New York State Board of Architecture, The First 500, the ACE Mentor Program of Greater NY, the Van Alen Institute, and the Billie Holiday Theatre. She is also an Urban Design Forum Fellow and Fulbright Ambassador.

Nandini Bagchee is the principal of Bagchee Architects and Associate Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture (CCNY, CUNY). Her research focuses on activism in architecture and the ways in which ground up collaborative building practices provide an alternative medium for the creation of public space. Nandini is the author of a book on the history and impact of activist-run spaces in New York City entitled, Counter Institution: Activist Estates of the Lower East Side (Fordham University Press, 2018). Nandini’s design work and writing has been published in the New York Times, Interiors Now, Urban Omnibus and the Journal of Architectural Education. She is the recipient of grants from the New York State Council of the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Graham Foundation. Her research-based architectural work involves long-term engagement with community land trusts in the South Bronx, Long Island City, East New York and Edgemere in New York and Cooperation Jackson is Mississippi.

Pres Adams is responsible for developing and managing relationships with local economic development partners including community-based organizations and mission-driven developers, financial institutions and local/state agencies in order to grow LISC NYC’s pipeline of small businesses and real estate projects that foster inclusive economic development. Joining LISC in 2022, Pres has over 10 years of experience in economic development, real estate, and nonprofit management. He most recently served as Director of Space Planning with Communitas America, Inc., where he developed plans to open an incubator space for social entrepreneurs in Harlem and provided direct technical assistance to small businesses and startups. Previously, Pres was a Co-Founder of Impact Hub Baltimore, where he oversaw the fundraising, buildout, and operations of an incubator space for social entrepreneurs and minority owned businesses. He went on to work as Global Partnerships Lead for the global Impact Hub network, where he led on real estate expansion strategy in the US and Canada and worked with a variety of philanthropic, government, and corporate partners. Pres also has a range of prior experience in real estate including anchor institution strategy, mixed-use development, leasing, and property management. Pres has a BA in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters in Real Estate from Johns Hopkins University.

Series Organizers and Moderators:

Peter Zuspan is the founding principal of Bureau V Architecture (BVA), a design and architecture studio based in Brooklyn, New York. BVA and its projects have won national and international awards, including numerous AIA Awards, a nomination for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, Architectural Digest Innovators, and Curbed Groundbreakers. Its work has also been listed in the top ten arts centers in the world in 2015 by Architectural Record. BVA's clients have included the Brooklyn Public Library, National Sawdust, the Bushwick Starr, Chapter NY, Atlanta's Goat Farm Arts Center, Miami-Dade County, and numerous other institutions. The studio's work has been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA PS1, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Smithsonian Institute/Cooper Hewitt Museum, and many others nationally and internationally. Zuspan's research project entitled “The Performance of Shame: The Desegregation Renovations of Downtown Atlanta,” won the 2021 Arnold W. Brunner Grant for Architectural Research. Zuspan holds a Masters of Architecture and a Bachelors of Arts from Columbia University. He is a licensed architect in the states of New York and Georgia. He is also the Secretary of the Board of Directors of National Sawdust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to new music. Zuspan has also taught architecture at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse University, and the University of Kentucky. BVA is a certified LGBTBE.

Stephanie Johnson Cunningham is the Executive Director of Museum Hue. Her leadership has propelled the organization into a nationally recognized and trusted source with 400+ institutional members (museums and academic institutions) that utilize the organization as a resource to inform both practice and policies. Stephanie has been committed to taking up the charge to change museums to bring about greater attention and constant awareness of racial issues through arts and culture. She stresses that the best pedagogical strategies include the cultural capital of communities to deepen knowledge and understanding of art, history, and culture. Stephanie holds a Bachelor's degree in Art and Art History from Brooklyn College and a Masters degree in Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies (CHAPS) from Rutgers University. She also received the Americans for the Arts 2019 American Express Emerging Leader Award for her work.

Sierra Van Ryck deGroot is the Deputy Director of Museum Hue. A proud alumna of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Program at Seton Hall University and Bank Street College of Education, Sierra has her B.A. in Art, Design and Interactive Media; Fine Arts; and Art History and M.S.Ed in Museum Education. A child of Guyanese immigrants, she is proudly born and raised in Central Jersey (NJ), which does exist and it is pork roll, not Taylor Ham. She is also half of the former Sierras co-presidential leadership team of the National Emerging Museum Professionals Network, a current board member for the New Jersey Association of Museums, and participating in many side quests related to advocating for change in the GLAM sector, especially in museums, around salary transparency, actionable equity in hiring practices, the abolition of unpaid internships, and the practice of rest for all museum workers.

Addison Tobias is the Programs Manager at Museum Hue. A former Schomburg Fellow at the University at Buffalo, Addison received her Master’s degree in Critical Museum Studies and Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology. She proudly brings experience expanding access to museums from her work co-developing Teen Programs at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Addison has participated in the Columbia Business School’s Executive Education Museum Leadership Program and is an advocate for amplifying BIPOC voices in arts administration. Originally from Buffalo, New York, Addison was adopted into a family of art educators and has always been interested in the use of arts as a lens for communication and expression. She is committed to implementing best practices in Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion initiatives across the arts and cultural field.

Koray Duman is the principal of B-KD (Büro Koray Duman), a research-driven architecture and design studio based in New York and Istanbul. Established in 2013, the firm completed projects for American Society for Muslim Advancement, Finnish Cultural Institute NY, MoMA PS1 Museum, and artist Richard Prince. In 2016, the firm won an invited competition to design an Art and Archive Building for the Noguchi Museum. In 2017, Architizer honored B-KD as Emerging Firm of the Year for ‘its forward-thinking for the role of the architect and the desire to disrupt the stigma of the practice’. Among several recognitions, the firm received the 2017 Design Award of Excellence by Society of American Registered Architects, and 2020 & 2015 Best of the Year Awards by Architects Newspaper. The firm's work has been featured in publications like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, Surface Magazine, Cultured Magazine, Interior Design Magazine and Dwell. Koray is originally from Turkey where he earned a BArch from Middle Eastern Technical University and furthered his studies at UCLA with a Master’s degree in Architecture. He previously worked as the lead architect on several US west coast museum projects. He served as the chair of the New Practice Committee at AIA NYC CHapter, and a board member of the Clemente Center in the Lower East Side. He is on the advisory board of American Society for Muslim Advancement and ProtoCinema. He is an adjunct professor at Pratt and New School and a registered architect in New York State and Turkey.