After conducting a national search, the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture (SoA) is pleased to announce Sarah Rafson as our Curator of Public Programs. Sarah is an architecture writer, editor, and curator. She is the founder of Point Line Projects, an editorial and curatorial agency. In this new role, Sarah will organize the school’s annual public programs, including our lectures and exhibitions, in collaboration with a school committee composed of faculty, staff, and students. She will also continue to edit EX-CHANGE, the school’s annual publication of student work, and organize its exhibitions. In these roles, Sarah will provide the SoA with the ability to bring important voices in architecture to the school and also disseminate our students’ work to the public.
“I am thrilled for the opportunity to continue working with the School of Architecture,” Sarah said. “Public programs are vital to welcoming new voices, sharing who we are, and building on the conversations we are intellectually engaged in.”
This is a role that faces in two directions—outward as it circulates the SoA’s research and accomplishments more widely, and inward as it fosters a sense of connection among the vast array of activities taking place within the school’s walls. In that sense, Sarah’s role as curator of public programs will provide a vehicle to highlight the school’s dynamic energy while also thinking critically about who the “public” is for our programming. How might our programs be opportunities to both speak and listen?
“I am not naïve about how much work, planning, and organization it takes to be able to create that kind of structure,” Sarah said. “This is a process I have already begun to test both in EX-CHANGE and in organizing exhibitions, publications, and events with Point Line Projects. But this is why I am so excited about working with all of you. The SoA’s faculty, staff, and students bring passion, expertise, and experience to the school, and I want to create programming where everyone feels a stake in what is produced.”
Sarah is a graduate of the University of Toronto and Columbia University’s Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP) program. She received the SoA’s 2017–18 Ann Kalla Professorship in Architecture, which she used to develop the EX-CHANGE publication and exhibition and curate the school’s 2018 NAAB exhibition.
