AD—WO (Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood), Ifeoma Ebo, Selina Martinez, Maya Bird-Murphy, and DK Osseo-Asare are the five Architecture & Design recipients of the annual United States Artists (USA) Fellowship. The historic arts funding organization aims to highlight the “the value of artists to American society and address their economic challenges.” It has provided cash awards and relief for artists across various disciplines since 2006.
Each recipient is awarded $50,000 unrestricted cash awards which may be used for healthcare, rent, reducing debt, or investing in their practice. The fellowship also includes access to USA artist services like tax advising, financial planning and career consulting to address the recipient’s evolving needs.
The USA Fellows span generations and geography to honor artists and are awarded through a peer-selection process across ten disciplines including Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing.
This year’s Architecture & Design Fellows include emerging and established artists using their understanding of space and design as tools for community building and social justice.
Ifeoma Ebo | Brooklyn, New York
Ifeoma Ebo is a Nigerian American designer, architect, artist, community designer, and founding principal of Creative Urban Alchemy. Throughout her twenty-year career, Ebo has led various architecture, urban design and planning developments funded by the United Nations, FIFA, and the NYC Mayor’s Office. She has led multidisciplinary teams that focused on supporting racial, social, and cultural equity through regenerative placemaking strategies and equitable design.
Selina Martinez | Penjamo-Scottsdale, Arizona
Architect-in-training Selina Martinez is a Xicana and Pascua Yaqui Tribe member born and raised in Phoenix. She integrated the use of 3D laser scanning and indigenous and bioclimatic desert design responses while leading architecture studios in Arizona State University Design School. Her project Juebenaria focuses on showcasing Yaqui lived experiences through digital media. Martinez also cofounded and leads the Design Empowerment Phoenix program.
Maya Bird-Murphy | Chicago
Architectural designer and educator Maya Bird-Murphy is the founder and executive director of Mobile Makers, a nonprofit organization that brings skill-building and design workshops to underrepresented communities. Bird-Murphy is a faculty member at Boston Architectural College and believes in teaching and community engagement as tools to expand the field of design into a more inclusive one. Bird-Murphy was also recently named one of four finalists in Harvard’s 2023 Wheelwright Prize.
DK Osseo-Asare |State College, Pennsylvania
DK Osseo-Asare is the Ghanaian American cofounding principal of the Austing and Tema, Ghana-based firm Low Design Office (LowDO), and an associate Professor at Penn State University. Osseo-Asare has led landscape, participatory architecture, and urban design-build projects along the Guinea Coast. His work focuses on the collaboration with communities for ecosocial resilience. He co-initiated the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP) a participatory pan-African initiative “to build alternative futures, cooperatively,” per LowDO. Osseo-Asare was also recently named one of four finalists in Harvard’s 2023 Wheelwright Prize.
AD-WO (Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood)| New York
Founded in 2015 by Jen Wood and Emanuel Admassu, AD—WO is an art and architecture practice based in New York. AD—WO examines space and its relation to art, design, and curatorial interventions. Their work was recently exhibited at the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023) and the Venice Architecture Biennale (2023). The firm recently provided exhibition design and curatorial consultation for a show curated by Drew Thompson on metal art in African design at the Bard Graduate Center.
Former USA fellows for the Architecture & Design category include, design justice architect Bryan C. Lee Jr and installation artist Deanna Van Buren.
