RECESS! Design Studio
RECESS! Design Studio is a creative agency, design class, and artist project housed inside the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Northeast Portland. In collaboration with KSMoCA, RECESS! works with third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade designers. The studio explores the role design holds in shaping our lives, and uses graphic design as a tool to interpret and reinterpret our environments. RECESS! is co-directed by artists Jordan Rosenblum and Kimberly Sutherland, in collaboration with visiting artists and designers.
During the 2020-2021 academic year, RECESS! is one of 8 Artists-in-Residence at KSMoCA.
Exhibition Posters
RECESS! creates posters to advertise upcoming exhibitions and artist talks at KSMoCA. We print the posters on the school’s Xerox machine and hang them throughout Dr. MLK Jr. School.
Typography
RECESS! students develop a variety of physical, hand-drawn, and digital type to be used in KSMoCA activities. In the Fall of 2019, RECESS! worked with visiting designer Leah Maldonado to develop visualized, musical typography.
“I Am” Cafeteria Posters (2019)
The “I Am” project is a series of posters designed by RECESS!, permanently installed in the Dr. MLK Jr. School cafeteria. By drawing connections between local and global role models, these posters ask us to recognize who we are and to imagine who we want to be.
The posters are a collaboration of student research, writing, and illustration with Ms. Jones’ class and the RECESS! Design Studio, and was conceived of by PTA member Dominique Shelton.
About RECESS!
RECESS! is co-Directed by artists Jordan Rosenblum and Kimberly Sutherland. The program was founded during the 2018-2019 academic year.
Jordan Rosenblum is an artist, designer, and educator. Recent projects explore themes of land value and ownership, ecology and climate change, human relationships to time, and the interpretative role of design. He teaches at Portland State University, works as a visual designer, and co-directs the RECESS! Design Studio (in affiliation with the King School Museum of Contemporary Art)—an artist project that engages the power of design with elementary school students. Jordan holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and is an MFA candidate in Portland State University's Art and Social Practice program. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
Kimberly Sutherland is a designer, artist, and educator. Her projects range from client-based design work to an art practice exploring the interconnections between humans and nature by examining our relationships to place. She teaches design and typography at Portland State University and is interested in decolonizing design practices. Kimberly is currently the design director of the King School Museum of Contemporary Art in Portland, OR and has worked at The New York Times Magazine, Nike, Apple and Project Projects with clients ranging from The Museum of Modern Art, Artists Space, and Gagosian Gallery. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center in Portland, OR, The Institut für Alles Mögliche in Berlin, Germany, and Greensboro Project Space in Greensboro, NC. She holds an MFA in Art & Social Practice from Portland State University and a Bachelor of Design from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Raised amongst the Canadian Cascades, Kimberly currently lives and works in Portland, OR.