Prada and Theaster Gates Partner to Celebrate and Mentor Designers of Color

Once a year over the three years, the awardees will assemble at planned annual retreats. Not only will they be able to share their work, inspire dialogue, and bridge potential for collaboration, but they will also activate the vast professional, industrial, and creative networks that extend throughout Prada Group, Fondazione Prada, Theaster Gates Studio, Rebuild Foundation. and Dorchester Industries. 

From over 200 nominated individuals, the final group was whittled down to an inspiring 14: Tolu Coker (fashion design), Germane Barnes (architecture), Norman Teague (product design), Kyle Abraham (dance), Mariam Issoufou Kamara (architecture), Kendall Reynolds (footwear), Yemi Amu (agriculture), Kenturah Davis (visual art) Salome Asega (art, technology & design),  Damarr Brown (culinary arts), Maya Bird-Murphy, (architecture), Brandon Breaux (fine art & design), Summer Coleman (graphic design), and Catherine Sarr (fine jewelry design). 

Each was chosen not only for their creative aptitude, but also their ability to understand design as an exercise in problem solving and as means to affect positive change in everyday life. Make no mistake, this is no fledgling group of upstarts.The awardees are accomplished and seasoned pros, masters of their medium with strong foundations in place. Through such a selection, The Design Lab makes a decisive statement: the future will be built on expertise, excellence, and practical wisdom gained from disciplined hard work. 

For some awardees like the French-born fine jewelry designer Catherine Sarr, who creates minimal, versatile pieces inspired by universal symbols and motifs, The Design Lab is immediately impactful to her work and business. Her most pressing challenges are in logistics and distribution as she carves a space among the market’s looming luxury giants. Suddenly, the singular know-how and savoir faire of Prada Group is merely a phone call away. The painter Brandon Breaux—who prefers to work in oils and wields a technical virtuosity reminiscent of the old masters as well David Hockney—now finds himself caught between traditional school of painting and the intellectual irreverence of contemporary art. Which way to go? The Design Lab offers not only Gates as a mentor, but also the curators and gallery spaces associated with Prada and her longstanding patronage of the arts to help Breaux navigate a new direction.

The Design Lab inception is timely as we all slowly shrug off the haze of the pandemic and awaken to a new world. Its aim is simple: to bring intelligent, creative people of color together as peers, collaborators, and friends. To create a community that fosters growth and good ideas, and that in time will have the agency and influence to do for others what Gates and crew have done for them. Remember that word, “synergy.” A simple idea so rich in possibilities.