BCAT CO(LABS) Information Session Poster

The Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab is hosting a series of inter-institutional collaborative projects, DISCO CO(LAB)s, beginning in the Fall 2024 semester. This first year-long collaboration will be focusing on the Black Homeplace, and how Black worldmaking practices are digitally mediated. The "Black Homeplace" represents "a space that provides a sanctuary supporting the wholeness and humanizing of those who collectively create and exist in said space" (hooks, 1990). We invite you to join us as we center Black homes, and the ways in which they act as containers of both the familiar and the ancestral.

Join the BCaT Lab for a DISCO CO(LAB) project information session on Wednesday, September 18th at 10am to learn about our new inter-institutional research project focusing on Black Homeplace and Black placemaking practices.

We’re seeking collaborators from the University of Maryland and beyond, and will award some summer microgrants for participation.

Collaboration in this project can take many forms, and we anticipate that you will center your own research interests and preferred outputs. We will provide weekly opportunities for co-working, communal learning, and practical application workshops across the 2024-2025 academic year. One of the central outputs of the project that we anticipate is an interactive XR exhibition of an archetypical Black home, including oral histories, artistic renderings, essays and more.

This collaboration will be led by Dr. Rianna Walcott, the associate director of the BCaT lab and an assistant professor in the Communication department at the University of Maryland. You can join our information session on Wednesday 18th September at 10am to learn more about the collaboration in Skinner 3115, or on Zoom.