Alumni Panel: Social Entrepreneurship
This inspiring panel discussion explored the many ways alumni makers and designers are using the skills they honed at RISD to make a positive impact on the world.
Joe Gebbia 05 GD/ID hosted a panel of global influencers that included: Brooklyn-based cofounder of Morcos Key design studio and the artist collective Codify Art Jon Key 13 GD; Karam Foundation CEO Lina Sergie Attar MArch 01; and local anti-gun activist and cofounder of One Gun Gone Scott Lapham 90 PH. The panelists discussed how they learned to think and see the world differently at RISD and how they bring that to their creative work for social change.
"What does it mean to be a graphic designer? How does my blackness, queerness affect my graphic design? I prioritize using my skills to amplify other marginalized voices," said Jon Key 13 GD. "Codify Art works to emphasize, elevate, support, curate and show queer and trans artists of color. Our Art Drive project collects art supplies from the community so we can run art workshops for New Alternatives, a homeless center for LGBTQ youth."
"When I came here to RISD, I came in as one person and left as another. My brain was rewired by my experience here. I learned that I had limitless potential and didn’t have that belief when I started," said Lina Sergie Attar MArch 01."The Karam Foundation is helping refugee Syrian youth and families. We remove children from child labor, send them back to school, help students access higher education, provide housing and run community innovation hubs that deliver RISD-esque programs. We are helping youth learn how to lead and to imagine and build a world better than we have today."
"I legally purchased a firearm, paid a RISD alumna to make a mold, and from that mold I work with my students and we make as much art as can. There is no text, the works of art are non-verbal expressions of how we feel about gun violence. We have taken one gun off street, but we are selling the art made from that gun to do a gun buyback here in Providence," explained Scott Lapham 90 PH. "We work with students from underserved neighborhoods who are introduced to people, places and institutions they would not experience otherwise."
