Deanna Van Buren

“With the movement toward decarceration set in motion, we will need to address a series of pressing issues, including the planning and building of infrastructure, such as housing, in underinvested communities to which citizens are returning; the need to cultivate restorative reinvestments in these communities; and the adaptive reuse of defunct and vacant criminal justice infrastructure in our city centers and rural lands.”

DESCRIPTION OF WORK
Deanna Van Buren is the cofounder and design director of Designing Justice + Designing Space, a firm that addresses architecture in the carceral state, combining ideas on prison abolition and racial justice. Van Buren’s work envisions a future without the prison system. Through this work, she has been the only architect awarded the Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellowship.
BORN 
Contemporary
DESCENT 
American / African American  
DISCIPLINE Activist / Artist / Architect