Sophia Xiao-fan Austrins
Director, Colloqate Design PDX
In the face of everything that feels broken and everything that needs doing in the world, do you ever feel small? inconsequential?
I came into the field of Architecture wanting to have an impact. I was inspired by the power of built spaces to shape life. In school, I was constantly taught that this life shaping power was to be held in the hands of individual Architects, but as I look out at the injustice in our society and the destruction of our planet, I have, in the past, felt at a loss at what I could possibly do. Early 2020 was certainly a moment of feeling small, but as I’ve moved forward from there, these few crazy years have also given me great hope.
In the midst of increasingly visible racist attacks at the beginning of the pandemic, I co-founded an artivist initiative called #MaskOutHate, creating relationships with BI-POC artists and communities to build opportunities for dialogue, wealth, and celebration through the design of culturally affirming masks. I went into that experience feeling inadequate. I had never organized anything comparable, never printed fabric or made masks. And though I hungered to connect with people of color after the culture shock of arriving into a predominantly white career in a predominantly white town, I had never connected with many of the communities of color in Portland, including my own.
Despite all of that, I was energized by the support of others who gathered around the vision. By positioning myself as a facilitator to a larger process, the artists who came on board led the way in connecting with their communities and creating spaces of joy and connection that were beyond what I could have created alone. Instead of assuming that participants did not know what they were doing and needed an expert to take the first pass, I saw artists put questions and tools into their workshop participants’ hands to experience the delight of designing for themselves. So much potential comes in spreading the power to create and think about design.
Through #MaskOutHate, I realized that I did not need to be afraid of being small. Yes, I am small. Yes, I am inconsequential. But we can do bigger things together by enabling one another to be larger than ourselves.
I am taking one more step in my journey. The future we started to imagine through #MaskOutHate is not one I want to continue to seek through extracurriculars alone. It has been time for a career change. Karim Hassanein and I are joining forces with Colloqate Design to open a Portland Design Justice studio serving the Pacific Northwest. Colloqate has already been working around the country towards a radical vision for racial, social and cultural justice in the built environment. The Portland Studio is a first step in a dream to support emerging Design Justice practices across the country.
By combining our expertise in architecture, communications and storytelling, Karim and I hope to expand the role of design to create the relationships and systems that our communities need to thrive within their built environments. In addition to accessible design services; grassroots organizing and advocacy are essential to change the power dynamics that surround our work. As an Architect, I want to see the power of the built environment shared with communities who have been left out of our design processes to create their own futures and find delight.
Let’s be consequential together.
