Delphine Hirasuna, author of “Art of Gaman” along with her co-author Kit Hinrichs are speaking on “Transitions and Progressions” on Aug. 19, 2010, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. with a cocktail reception starting at 5:00 p.m. at W Minneapolis – The Foshay, 821 Marquette Avenue, downtown Minneapolis. The event will benefit BrandLab, a nonprofit established to create opportunities in the marketing industry for students with diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Tickets are $35 for nonmembers and $20 for students, and available at www.aigaminnesota.org. Space is limited and advance ticket purchase is highly recommended.
Hinrichs and Hirasuna have collaborated over the years on a wide range of award-winning projects and important publications. One of which, “@Issue: Journal of Business and Design” has since 1995 dedicated itself to communicating how quality design contributes to business success.
The two will focus a discussion on case studies around their design process and how following their personal passions have sent them in exciting, new and evermore satisfying directions in digital and print medium and contemporary and historical subjects.
With a print circulation at 100,000, @Issue is part of the marketing curriculum in some of the most prestigious MBA programs and design schools across the U.S. In April 2009, it was launched as an online blog at atissuejournal.com.
Hinrichs and Hirasuna also collaborated on several books, including “Long May She Wave: A Graphic History of the American Flag”, and “The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946.” The work featured in The Art of Gaman was largely forgotten for decades.
Hirasuna worked with the San Francisco chapter of the Japanese American Citizens to contact dozens of individuals in the Japanese American community on the West Coast to gather items while developing the book The Art of Gaman, which eventually became a traveling exhibition.
In 2006, the exhibition was shown at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco, the Oregon Historical Society in Portland and The William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn.
This spring, the exhibit traveled to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art with Hirasuna serving as a guest curator and lecturer. The exhibit, running March 5, 2010 through January 30, 2011, includes historical context through archival photographs, artifacts, and documentary films.
Following the presentation Delphine and Kit will be signing copies of their book and there will be plenty of time to meet and mingle with the authors.
Other upcoming Design Conversations speakers include Gael Towey, chief creative officer of award-winning Martha Stewart Living Omni, Inc., and Stephen Doyle, creative director at Doyle Partners and 2010 winner of the National Design Award for communications design, speaking Sept. 9; and AIGA president Debbie Millman and Emmy award-winning graphic designer, James Victore on Nov. 3.
