Students and alumni from the Harvard Graduate School of Design are launching an online Design Yard Sale to raise funds in support of the movement against systemic anti-Black racism. The team will sell and auction creative works donated by the design community, and all net proceeds will go towards the Bail Project and Colloqate Design. Among Design Yard Sale’s offerings will be works donated by renowned designers, artists, and scholars such as Toshiko Mori, Oana Stanescu, Rachel Israela, Jeanne Gang, Billie Tsien, Snarkitecture, Jerome Byron and VERV LONDON.
As the event organizers explain, a variety of design items are available for sale at fixed prices, in addition to select items that will be auctioned throughout July. Objects for sale will include original drawings, prints, and sculptures, as well as books, clothing, and furniture, some of which were produced specifically for the Design Yard Sale. “Design and architecture are what we’re good at,” said Yaxuan Liu, a third-year student at the Harvard GSD and one of the event’s organizers. “But right now we need to get resources into the hands of activists and organizers on the front lines of the movement. Design Yard Sale lets us use our skills to make that happen.”
A number of special items which will be auctioned, including a Virgil AblohTM x IKEA MARKERAD Chair from his personal archive to be illustrated on and signed by Virgil Abloh with the purchaser's name. An original painting by Sam Jacob; an out-of-print, signed copy of Spatial Structure by Pezo von Ellrichshausen; an out-of-print, signed copy of African Modernism by Iwan Baan; a signed Gravitational Cutting Mat by Benjamin Edgar and an original ink drawing by Harvard GSD student Kyat Chin will also be available for bidding.
Led by Yaxuan Liu, Tessa Crespo, Grace Chee, Edward Han, and Izzy Kornblatt, the Design Yard Sale event launched on July 1st and will run for one month. The event organizers continue to welcome design donations through mid-July. Beneficiaries include the Bail Project, which combats mass incarceration and racial and economic disparities in the bail system, and Colloqate Design, who organize, advocate, and design for spaces of racial, social and cultural equity.
Find out more at https://www.designyardsale.org/ or on Instagram @DesignYardSale
