Skip to content
The Latimer Prize
◊Companion Exhibit

Design is the
New Black.

The prize winners will have a unique exhibition appear at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — a companion exhibit that extends the ceremony into a public record of Black design thinking across disciplines.

The Ceremony →
A black Cooper Hewitt sign outside the Carnegie Mansion reading Design Is the New Black, lecture series and mock exhibit of remarkable African American designers.
Exterior marker, the museum as public signal.
A gallery wall at Cooper Hewitt with a monumental panel reading Design Is the New Black and curatorial text introducing Black designers and future-making practice.
Curatorial language, design framed as cultural authorship.
An exhibition panel inside Cooper Hewitt pairing the Design Is the New Black title with portraits of Black designers and a typographic roster of names.
The roster, portrait, title, and institutional wall text.
A Lewis Latimer museum display viewed through a circular frame, with portrait, artifact case, and wall text naming him as inventor.
Lewis Latimer in the museum record.
A robotic figure on display in a clear vitrine at Cooper Hewitt with the name Lanny Smoot projected on the wall behind it.
Lanny Smoot, invention staged as living possibility.
A black Cadillac SUV displayed in a clear exhibition vitrine with the name Ed Welburn on the wall behind it.
Ed Welburn, industrial design given gallery scale.
A large framed portrait of Marcus Samuelsson installed beside exhibition text in a dark gallery at Cooper Hewitt.
Marcus Samuelsson, cuisine, portraiture, and cultural memory.
An Olivier Rousteing installation at Cooper Hewitt featuring portraits, a cream jacket on mannequin, and an object pedestal inside a dark wood room.
Olivier Rousteing, fashion, form, and exhibition craft.