Solon, Ohio— Tarkett has committed to a series of initiatives over the next several years to support diversity and inclusion within the design community, including its national title sponsorship of the Design Museum Foundation’s upcoming exhibition, We Design: People. Practice. Progress.
The company said the sponsorship is an important step in a multi-year plan to make diversity, equity and inclusion a major focus, both internally and in collaboration with the architecture and design industry. “Our relationship with Design Museum on the We Design exhibit is an important step to bringing broader awareness and collaboration around this need,” said Mausi McDaniel, vice president brand & design marketing, Tarkett North America. “We realize this is no small endeavor, but diversifying our talent is both the right thing to do and critical to the future relevance of our professional and cultural contributions.”
We Design is a multimedia exhibition celebrating a variety of creative professionals — of differing ages, genders, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations and abilities — showcasing their unique career paths through stories and photos, along with examples of their work throughout their careers, including design process imagery and artifacts. The exhibition also explores the need for more diversity in the design and innovation industries through quantitative and qualitative data visualizations and case studies.
“Diversity, equity and inclusion is a major focus in our business, and we view this collaboration as another step towards driving positive change,” McDaniel added. “We know design aesthetic and function are vastly improved when we are inclusive of diverse perspectives. Too many voices have been pushed away from the table for far too long, and we’re excited to be a small part of changing that.”
This exhibition will be free and open to the public, premiering in early October 2019 at the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building in Roxbury, MA. From there, the exhibition will continue to travel around Greater Boston and beyond, over a multi-year period and will eventually be cataloged in a print publication.
Photo: Pictured clockwise from bottom right: Phil Freelon, photo by Mark Herboth; Debra Latour, Sabrina Dorsainvil, Denise Rush, Saba Ghole, Phil Kongtcheu, photos by Nancy Carbonaro.
