Through the UVA Center for Cultural Landscapes, Hackett has been working with our staff, stakeholders, and descendant communities to envision a new online platform for showcasing grassroots preservation and artistic representation of historic Black settlements. As part of CCL’s Outsider Preservation Initiative and in partnership with UVA Black Alumni Weekend, Curry Hackett delivered a keynote address reflecting on the role of visual arts and emergent technologies, such as generative AI, in narrating Black relationships to land.
Curry J. Hackett is a transdisciplinary designer, visual artist, and educator focused on Black connections with land, media, and memory. From Farmville, Virginia, he explores the aesthetics and ecologies of the American South across various scales and mediums. He holds architecture degrees from Howard University and Harvard Graduate School of Design and is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU Steinhardt School.
The Outsider Preservation Initiative is a multi-year, Mellon Foundation-supported project. The Initiative activities, research, and grantmaking highlight the roles culture, performance, storytelling, and heritage play in descendants’ approaches to preserving, revitalizing, remembering, and protecting historic Black landscapes in the US and Canada.
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