MABEL O. WILSON

Professor Mabel O. Wilson is a New York-based designer and cultural historian whose research and teaching examines the impact of social inequalities on architecture and the built environment, with a focus on politics and cultural memory in black America. At Columbia University she is a Professor of Architecture, a co-director of Global Africa Lab and the Associate Director at the Institute for Research in African American Studies.

Professor Wilson’s trans-disciplinary practice, Studio And, has been a competition finalist for several important cultural institutions including Lower Manhattan’s African Burial Ground Memorial and the Smithsonian’s National Museum for African American History and Culture (with Diller Scofidio + Renfro). She has authored Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016) and Negro Building: African Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums (2012). Professor Wilson is also a founding member of Who Builds Your Architecture? (WBYA?), a collective that advocates for fair labour practices on building sites worldwide.