Between Space & Place: Cultural narratives of the BIPOC community

MIAD faculty Alexia S. Brunson ’14, one of ten faculty and staff members who received a Ruth Arts + MIAD Grant for the 2023-24 academic year, recently shared with the college a presentation of her year-long project, “Culture: Between Space & Place.”

Brunson graduated from MIAD with a major in Interior Architecture and Design, holds an M.A. in Media Studies; is editor-in-chief of CopyWrite Magazine, Media & Design LLC; and is MIAD assistant professor of Writing and Humanities. Her multifaceted interests and talents all came together in the yearlong work.

“The goal of this art experience was to create a communal narrative that values people who have historically been disenfranchised in the places they celebrate their culture unapologetically,” says Brunson in her presentation. “This is where we show that space is only defined by its cultural functionality, which is place, and programmatically asserts that art is a reflection of our experiences, seen and unseen.”

Brunson created “poem vignettes of the feelings and the nuances” of four places: the barbershop, corner store, beauty supply store and living room.

“By creating a series of vignettes that exist and will exist in multiple mediums,” Brunson says, “I share cultural narratives that reflect the internal perspectives of the BIPOC community, not as a monolith, but as a note of existence that we often assign a diminutive importance.”

“What was really important about making these spaces was that I needed to take pieces of the living environment in the real world, to cultivate the space so it looks like what you see,” says Brunson. “The installation happened in a gallery space, a studio that I made into a gallery. Each vignette is separated by a five-by-five half wall that was built by me and then constructed to look like these different environments.”

Brunson sourced as many original materials as possible, had conversations with people who work and live in the spaces, and drew on her own experiences and memories to reflect on perceptions of male-dominated environments, food deserts, Black beauty esthetics and Black living spaces. Especially important was also paying homage to the values, dialogues and nuances those spaces and lived experiences hold.

“It was not until I was an adult,” Brunson says, “that I realized that place and knowing place would connect me to so many of my people. And even when the feeling of displacement may have kept me away too long, I would always have a shared history.”

Brunson’s project in featured in Issue 21 of CopyWrite Magazine “Back To Black,” available for purchase.

Read about MIAD’s Interior Architecture and Design major. Explore the Ruth Arts + MIAD Artist Grant Program.