Mapping Malcolm: A Centennial Series, Part II

Join us on Thursday, April 10th at 6:30 PM for the second installment of Mapping Malcolm: A Centennial Series, curated by Najha Zigbi-Johnson. This engaging, three-part public series dives deep into Malcolm X's lasting influence, examining his impact not only on the Harlem community but also on the broader landscape of New York City and beyond. 

In Part II of this series, The Radical Imagination and Black Aesthetics: A World Building Exercise, we'll bring together artist Awol Erizku, designer Curry Hackett, architect Jerome Haferd, and artist Helina Metaferia to discuss Black aesthetics as a site for radical world-building. Drawing from the themes of Mapping Malcolm, the conversation will examine how Black spatial practices, historical iconography, and transnationalism shapes contemporary art, design, and architecture. Together, we will consider how Malcolm X’s vision continues to reverberate across disciplines, not only as a historical blueprint but also as an evolving, creative force that shapes public space, cultural production, and the future of Black radical thought. At a time when the built environment remains a contested site of power, exclusion, and erasure, this discussion insists on the necessity of art and the radical imagination as a liberatory tool.

The program will be followed by a soulful DJ set by Tara, blending music and history to close out the evening.

 About Mapping Malcolm:

“For Harlem is where he worked and where he struggled and fought―his home of homes, where his heart was, and where his people are.” Nearly sixty years since the martyrdom of Malcolm X, these words from Ossie Davis’s eulogy remind us that Malcolm’s political and religious beliefs and conceptions of culture have profoundly shaped and been shaped by Harlem. Mapping Malcolm continues the project of reinscribing Malcolm X’s memory and legacy in the present by exploring his commitment to community building and his articulation of a global power analysis as it continues to manifest across New York City today. More specifically, the book explores the limits and possibilities of the archive, the political, material, and philosophical legacy of the Black radical tradition, the Black diaspora, and the state. Oriented toward sovereignty and liberation, Mapping Malcolm brings together artists, community organizers, and scholars to consider the politics of Black space-making in Harlem through a range of historical, cultural, and anti-imperialist worldviews designed to offer new, reparatory pedagogical possibilities. Together, they reconfigure how we understand, employ, and carry forward Malcolm X’s sociopolitical, cross-cultural analyses of justice and power as an everyday praxis in the built environment and beyond.

Panelists:

Najha Zigbi-Johnson

Najha Zigbi-Johnson is a writer, educator, and cultural curator. Her Harlem-based practice sits at intersections of the built environment, contemporary Black art, and social movement history. She is the editor of Mapping Malcolm, a publication that brings together artists, transnational community leaders, and scholars who explore the politics of Black space-making. Najha teaches political science and architecture at The City College of New York, and has written for The Cut, New York Magazine, Essence, Artforum, SEEN Journal, White Cube Gallery and more. Najha holds a BA in Religious Studies from Guilford College and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, where she graduated as a Presidential Scholar. Najha also served as a Fellow at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University and is currently a Create Change Fellow at the Laundromat Project.

Awol Erizku

Awol Erizku is a multidisciplinary artist working in photography, film, sculpture and installation, creating a new vernacular that bridges the gap between African and African American visual culture. Erizku's work refers to subjects as diverse as art history, hip-hop, and spirituality, rejecting Eurocentric notions of art and beauty in favour of building an Afrocentric aesthetic, something he refers to as "Afro-esotericism.” 

Curry Hackett 

Curry Hackett is a transdisciplinary designer, public artist, and educator. His practice, Wayside, looks to under-recognized patterns, narratives, and histories to inspire emergent forms of media, building, and art. Curry is perhaps most known for his recent experiments with artificial intelligence, in which he braids Black aesthetics, kinships with nature, and pop culture to imagine surreal scenes of Black joy and abundance.  

Jerome Haferd

Jerome W Haferd is a licensed architect, public artist, and educator based in Harlem, NYC. He is principal of the award winning JEROME HAFERD Studio. Haferd is assistant professor of architecture at City College’s Spitzer School of Architecture where he co-directs the new Place, Memory, and Culture Incubator. He is a 2025 United States Artist Fellow.

Helina Metaferia

Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working across collage, sculpture, video, performance, and social engagement. Her work incorporates archival research, embodied practices, and dialogical studies, supporting overlooked narratives of intersectional identities.

Metaferia’s solo exhibitions include Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA (2024-2025); RISD Art Museum, Providence, RI (2022-2023); and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (2021-2022). Her work was included in the 2023 Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates. Group exhibitions include Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2025); Blaffer Museum of Art, Houston, TX (2024); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (2023); The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD (2023); and Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Art Center, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2019). Her work is in institutional collections including Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY.

Metaferia received her MFA from Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She’s held residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Recess Art, Project for Empty Space, and Silver Art Residency. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine, Artnet, Artforum, and ArtNews. Metaferia is an Assistant Professor at Brown University in the Department of Visual Art, and lives and works in New York City. 

DJ Tara

Tara spins a collage of soulful sounds that captures an eclectic vibe. Her sets acknowledge the past while looking to the future and celebrating the now. In addition to performing at venues throughout New York City, Tara has two mix shows:  misc. on The Lot Radio in Brooklyn and UpBeat on Soho Radio in London, blending music that is both new and old, familiar and unknown, across eras, genres, and continents.