After finding a bell hooks’ article in the summer of 2022 entitled, Design: A Happening Life, interior designer Jessica Caldwell began exploring bell hooks’ writings for more of her thoughts on design and the material culture as it relates to the Black American experience. What followed her research was a number of essays spread across many of bell hooks’ books on social and cultural criticism. These essays explore race,  home life, community, feminism and masculinity within the domestic built environment. Most importantly they all point to home being a place of spiritual shelter for People of Color. 

In this presentation Jessica Caldwell will explore bell hooks’ essays and her assertion that  black women have historically made homes a community of refuge and resistance. This perspective currently serves as inspiration for Jessica’s current research exploring black women’s interior lives and desire for creating home, space and communities that signal safety, affirmation and softness in both analog and digital space.