Newark Design Collaborative Fellows Lead NJIT Students in Showcasing Talent at Zine Fest
Students at NJIT’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design showcased their work in the Newark Zine Fest, organized by Petia Morozov, Newark Design Collaborative fellow and publisher of Dense Magazine, was held at the Newark Art Museum. Zines, short for "magazines" or "fanzines," are typically small-batch, self-published works that emphasize unique, personal or niche perspectives.
Students from Associate Professor Hannah Berkin-Harper’s junior industrial design studio and Newark Design Collaborative Fellow Raafi Rivero’s collaborative studio were among over the 70 zine-makers featured in the event.
HCAD’s Newark Design Collaborative is a collective effort to focus the college’s engagement with the city of Newark through design studios, seminar classes, independent projects and library archives. Part of Rivero and Morozov's mandate as fellows is to help grow the network of collaborative projects HCAD works on in the city of Newark.
“It’s great for students at HCAD to see that their work can participate in a wider cultural conversation in Newark,” said Rivero. “One of the toughest things for a student to imagine is what it’s like working outside the confines of the university. Opportunities like this get students thinking about how design functions as part of society and its responsibility to serve people who are not designers themselves.”
Berkin-Harper’s students made furniture for the show. The collaborative studio, called Guerilla Storytelling, focused on the theme of Home. The collaborative studio is a class required for all fourth-years majoring in digital design, industrial design, and interior design. The driving idea is for students to collaborate with people in other disciplines.
“My students had several criteria for their projects. First, they supported the exhibition of the collaborative studio and of Newark Zine Fest in general with seating; they could respond to Rivero's prompt about home, create a museum bench/seat, or use Zine Fest and even Newark as inspiration points,” said Berkin-Harper. “They had a maximum size, and the pieces had to be somewhat easily movable for logistical reasons.
“My furniture design students also made a zine/poster that was given out at the show.”
Rivero enjoyed working alongside his students and seeing digital, interior and industrial designers work collaboratively. “In the studio, I watched one of the groups make a few choices after the industrial designer and interior designer had handed their models to the digital designer. The group, looking at their unified project, were able to make design decisions that couldn’t have come out of any one person’s individual skill set.”
Interior design major Amy Torres focused her work on the importance of storytelling. Torres points out that Rivero showed them how much a great story can empower a design and capture an audience.
“Our final's objective was to identify a problem in Newark and propose a solution and tie it back to the meaning of home. I thought about how heavily dependent Newark residents are on bus transportation — I certainly was while I was growing up and living in the city. However, I noticed that the bus shelters in this city go unloved and often lack the resources they need to be great shelters,” said Torres. “The waiting for the bus experience does not need to be a miserable one. With this in mind, my collaborative studio partner Jacob and I proposed designing bus shelters as our final project: the Newark Bus Shelter Initiative.
“In keeping true to Newark's identity, we looked towards the city's vibrant art presence as seen in its many, many murals. Our project became one of fusing art and shelter.”
Torres believes that this opportunity wouldn’t have risen in her other interior design studio classes. “From this experience, I hoped to solve an issue that was and still is important to me even if it's a hypothetical proposal for a studio class,” said Torres. “I'm glad that I had a chance to do something like this for my collaborative studio project. I don't think I would've had the opportunity otherwise in my interior design studio classes.
“One thing I stressed to my students is that these seats are not just for show,” said Berkin-Harper. “They must be usable because they create an amenity for visitors and for Zine Fest. A place to rest or engage or have conversations. The students have treated the making of these seats with such care knowing they are going to be used. Hopefully we can create more opportunities for HCAD students to be of service to the community in Newark while creating exciting and engaging designs.”
Christopher Frias, who last year won first place in the industrial design category of the Design Showcase, was among Berkin-Harper students who participated in the event. “I approached the idea with the intention of creating seating for the event that was representative of the Newark experience,” he said. “Challenging myself to create it from as little material as possible while remaining creative with a clear nod to Newark's most notable feature: bricks.”
“My hope was that my furniture will not only provide seating for the event but also provide an honorable representation of the culture surrounding Newark,” he added. “Trying my best to illustrate the founding mission statement of the Newark Museum of Art that ‘Art and learning are for everyone.’”
Rivero is enjoying the opportunity to help NJIT’s efforts to collaborate with the Newark community. “I’ve been an admirer of Newark and NJIT for some time, having served as a guest critic here a number of times,” he said. “What’s struck me even more since moving to Newark is just how layered the city is – it's an intellectual, cultural, and infrastructure hub.
“My work seeks to draw connections between layers of things – between sports, say, and public policy. What I most seek to achieve is creating a moment or series of moments where those connections can be appreciated by the community and productive in making connections between disparate groups of people.”
“This is definitely new territory for the school, and I think it's an important first step in the right direction,” said Morozov. “It is the reason why I think Rivero and I are fellows, and I think this is an event that shows the college's commitment to be part of the community.
“We're all going to look back at this and think about how to do it better and how to be even more inclusive. As both a fellow and an alum, it's so important to me that this is a story about how design is a potential instrument for inclusion, involving a school of design in a city that has faced many challenges.”
View a gallery of the event HERE.
