Processing Data: just practice and Cara Michell in Conversation

By weaving data into material form in their series Soft City and Touching Toxicity on view in Gallery 360, Ugorji and Weston Chien invite viewers to imagine planning processes grounded in care, participation, and ecological justice.

Presented as part of Design Research Week 2026, this program will explore how structural inequities become embedded in ecological systems and the built environment and how creative practice research can model approaches to urban-scale thinking that move beyond top-down decision-making, centering the lived experiences and spatial knowledge of residents as essential to imagining more just futures.

This event is free and open to the public. Registration is encouraged. Reception with light refreshments and snacks to follow at Gallery 360.

is presented as a collaboration between the Center for the Arts and the Mills College Art Museum.

Event Details:

Date: Friday, Mar. 20

Time: 2:00pm

Location: Raytheon Amphitheatre, Egan Research Center

Address: 120 Forsyth St, Boston, MA 02115

Speaker Bios:

just practice spans architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, community engagement, textile, and graphic design, as well as activist and organizing work within the design field. The collective was founded in 2021 by Sophie Weston Chien and Amanda Ugorji. Together, they think about modes of practice, the spatialization of memory, Black feminist practices, the historical role of women in architecture, and strategies for collective care. The pair have exhibited at the MIT Museum, Boston Public Library Leventhal Map Center, MIT Rotch Architecture Gallery, Yale School of Art E.I.K. Gallery and Boston Society of Architects Gallery, and individually in Fairbanks, AK, Providence, RI, and Rome, Italy. Sophie Weston Chien is from Charlotte and has a BFA and Bachelor of Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design with a minor in Politics and Policy and a dual Masters in Landscape Architecture and Masters in Urban Planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design as a Dean’s Merit Scholar. Amanda Ugorji is from Cambridge and has a BA in Architecture from Brown University and a Masters in Architecture at MIT School of Architecture + Planning as a John A. Lyons Fellow.

Cara Michell is an artist, urbanist, and Assistant Professor of Race & Social Justice in the Built Environment at Northeastern University’s School of Architecture and School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs. Her research and creative practice focus on community-led cartography and decolonial approaches to participatory map-making. Her artwork and participatory workshops have been featured at major cultural institutions, including MoMA PS1, the New Museum, La Mama Galleria, and Creative Time. She was selected for the New Museum’s NEW INC cultural incubator (2022-23) and has received fellowships from the Urban Design Forum and IdeasCity Detroit.

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