Michele Y Washington

Michele Y. Washington (she/her) is a transdisciplinary designer whose work blends design, curation, design research, and design criticism with Black memory work and academic inquiry. Her cultural practice merges the core of design research and design criticism, opening space for her to move fluidly between curatorial work, critical writing, liberatory practices, and community-based engagement. She uses design to interrogate systems, histories, and narratives—always asking: who is centered, who is erased, and what possibilities can we reimagine? 

Washington serves on the advisory boards of the Poster House Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, BlackSpace Urban Collective, Indigo Arts Alliance, and SEGD Education Task Force.

She is the founder and host of the “Curious Story Lab” podcast, which amplifies the voices of designers, architects, curators, urbanists, and creative professionals of color. She has published works in academic books, such as Imperfect Index, Everlasting Plastics, Feminist Media Histories: An International Journal, and The Black Experience in Design: Identity and Reflection, and her other writings have been featured in InQue Magazine, Architectural Record, Wonder City of the World: New York City Travel Posters, America I Am Pass It Down Cookbook, Print Magazine, and Eco Collective. She has also been featured on the Amazon Black Stories and Revision Path podcast series, SVA Visual Journal, SVA D-Crit Spotlight, and AIGA Eye on Design: Reimagining the Design Classroom.

Her curatorial projects include co-curator and research for Designer’s Choice: Norman Teague’s Jam Session at MoMA in New York City, consulted on Branding Black Power: Women of the Black Panthers, and Push Pin Studio at the Poster House Museum. Washington’s archival projects include: Re+Prise: NTD Design, Brownsville Heritage House with BlackSpace Urban Collective, and the Gordon Parks Foundation. Washington's work has been shown in the following exhibitions: Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip Hop Architecture, The Correct Time, AIGA Design Journey: You Are Here, Women Designers in the USA: Diversity and Differences 1900-2000, and Visual Perceptions: 21 African American Designers Challenge Modern Stereotypes.

Washington has also worked with civic design, cultural institutions, and nonprofits, including A Long Walk Home, Coforma, the Romare Bearden Foundation, Poster House Museum, City as Living Lab, Medgar Evers College, Cox Matthews & Associates, and West Harlem Group Assistance, showcasing her versatility and broad impact. Washington holds an MS in Communication Design from Pratt Institute and an MFA in Design Criticism from the School of Visual Arts. Previously, taught in the Graduate Exhibition and Experience Design Program at the Fashion Institute of Technology and CUNY, and at Pratt Institute in their design programs.

In her pursuit of expanding her research and practice, she has participated in the Design Incubation Writing Workshop and held fellowships with Columbia University A’Lelia Bundles Community Scholars Fellows, the Billops-Hatch Fellowship at Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, AIGA Wiki Scholars, and completed a residency at Monson Arts. She has used these experiences to delve into the archives and further her research in Black memory work.