Bruno Mathsson Design Residency 2024: Stephen Burks

Stephen Burks: "I believe the closer the hand gets to the act of making, the more potential there is for innovation. The Bruno Mathsson residency will bring my way of working into conversation with Swedish design history and industrial expertise while questioning who participates in design and who benefits. As the world faces continued global crises, design has the capacity to create more dialogue around more issues for more people. Even today, Mathsson’s legacy is living proof of this."

Stephen Burks (b. 1969, based in New York) is a designer and professor of architecture at Columbia University in New York. He studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Product Design at IIT’S Institute of Design, as well as attending Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture. Burks is the first African American to receive the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in product design. Independently and through association with the non-profits Aid To Artisans, Artesanias de Colombia, the Clinton Global Initiative, Design Network Africa and the Nature Conservancy, Burks has worked as a product development consultant in close collaboration with hundreds of artisans in over 15 countries on six continents. He believes in a pluralistic vision of design that is inclusive of all cultural perspectives. His Man Made project bridges the gap between authentic developing world production, industrial manufacturing and contemporary design.

Burk’s work has been exhibited internationally including the Armory Show, Art Basel/Design Miami, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, MAD Museum of Art & Design, Philadelphia Art Museum, Salone del Mobile, Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale, and the Stockholm Furniture Fair, and the Studio Museum Harlem. He has received various awards, including the Illinois Institute of Technology Alumni Professional Achievement Award, the Brooklyn Museum Modernism Young Designer Award, and the United States Artists Architecture & Design Target Fellowship Grant. Burks has also served as a product development consultant global brands like Dedon, Missoni, and Swarovski.