According to the 2019 AIGA Design Census, only three percent of interior designers identify as Black or African American (71 percent identify as white). Similar research hadn’t existed for furniture designers until recently, when the Ethiopian-American industrial designer Jomo Tariku decided to crunch some numbers as part of a presentation for an African American studies graduate seminar at Princeton. "I’ve been attending furniture shows for a while and consistently noticed that there were very few Black designers,” he tells Dezeen. “That trend has barely changed in the past 20 years of me intermittently attending shows including in Europe and the Middle East.”

Tariku turned to Architonic, a popular Swiss product database, and identified more than 150 of the world’s most noteworthy design-forward furniture brands. Throughout 2019 and 2020, he visited their websites and documented pages where brands listed their collaborating designers. Of 4,417 branded collections, only 14 were with Black designers—roughly one-third of one percent. Bernhardt and Moroso led the pack with two Black collaborators out of 73 and 52 collections, respectively, but many prominent brands such as Poltrona Frau, Cappellini, and FontanaArte had zero.

Tariku’s findings, first reported by Business of Home, illustrate an unmistakable systemic problem of racial homogeneity with the design industry. The reasons for this are complex and manifold: Many design brands are European, design academies tend to prioritize teaching the Western canon, and those same academies often attract few students of color. Taking action to rectify these disparities and diversify rosters won’t happen overnight, but illustrating the problem with concrete evidence is a crucial leap forward. “My research put numbers to what most Black designers have been saying: We are not represented in the design world,” says Tariku. “Whether impactful change will be realized remains to be seen.”

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When: Until Sept. 18

Where: Brookfield Place, New York

What: Known for creating elaborate sculptures and site-specific installations using accumulated cast-off materials, Shin debuts two works at Brookfield Place that question the ecological impact of consumer behavior in contributing to plastic pollution. The Last Straw illustrates the environmental impact of plastic straws by showing the dramatic perspective of looking through a straw, a group of enlarged vertical straws, and dense scattered piles of straws that map the flow of plastic debris. Nearby at the Winter Garden, Shin reveals Floating MAiZE, an immersive sculptural installation that consists of thousands of green plastic soft drink bottles that have been repurposed into artificial corn stalks to form an artificial maze.

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