counter/point: The 2013 D-Crit Conference, moderated by NPR’s “The Takeaway” host John Hockenberry, and featuring graduating students of the SVA MFA in Design Criticism, will take place on Saturday, May 11, 2013 at the SVA Theatre in New York City.

Paola Antonelli, senior curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, will deliver the keynote lecture, launching an afternoon of rich, polyphonic exchange between the D-Crit Class of 2013 and a headlining roster of design curators, practitioners, theorists, critics, educators, and planners. D-Crit students will be presenting their thesis research in counterpoint with: Walker Arts Center curator of Architecture and Design Andrew Blauvelt; British interaction design firm Dunne & Raby co-founder Fiona Raby; architect and theorist Mark Foster Gage; director of the J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City Toni Griffin; and architect and activist Michael Sorkin.

Topics to be addressed include: the persistence of segregation in today’s built environment; the problems inherent in exhibiting graphic design; the spectacular framing of nature in the urban environment; product design’s social and participatory dimension; and how some emerging architects are using literal representation in new ways.

This will be the fourth D-Crit conference organized by, and featuring, graduating D-Crit students. Join us for a fast-paced afternoon of heady ideas and practical insight about the subjects and strategies giving shape to design criticism today, and help us to celebrate a new generation of design critics, editors, journalists, authors, curators, researchers, and educators.

This event is free and open to the public, so sign up today to save your seat.