ayako.maruyama
PVD/ MNL/ TKY, she/her
About
Ayako Maruyama is a designer, teacher and illustrator. She is an Assistant Professor in the Industrial Design department at the Rhode Island School of Design with a Masters in City Planning. She works with designers, students, social practice artists, planners and organizers. Ayako has co-created numerous public engagement strategies often around spatial justice through her practice at Design Studio for Social Intervention and the University of Orange: A Free People's Urbanism School. These days, she asks: How we can center more reflection, collective recovery, maintenance, and repair in our design practice?
Education
Graduate & Research Assistantship, Student Association Leadership, Executive Committee for Capstone project to review the Boston Harbor Islands’ (BHI) General Management Plan for the National Park Service.
Honors Roll, Rachel Carson Environmental Award, European Honors Program Rome, Italy 2009
Certifications
Work Experience
End of Semester Student Virtual Final Presentations for the Interdisciplinary Studio & the Artist Teacher Studio taught by Professor Barrington Edwards.
Continued consulting and relationship building after I did two selection/review panels for applicants of the Collective Imagination for Spatial Justice grant and Public Art for Spatial Justice grant in 2020 and 2021.
Lectured and led a workshop as part of UofO’s Urbanists in Residence Sheltering in Place. Lectured on place, motion and memory from our cross-country bike tour of Japan followed by a zine-making workshop.
Co-designed summer workshop series with UofO’s Collective Recovery team for partner organizations.
Studios taught: Experience of Public Engagement’ & ‘Introduction to Industrial Design’ studios for undergraduates and first year graduate students.
Projects
Featured guest and workshop leader for the Cultural Organizing for Community Change annual event. Organizers, artists, media makers, and policy makers convened to learn effective ways to deepen our work and engage our creativity in organizing for community change.
Skill building series workshop exploring expression through radical self-publishing
Co-designed community engagement tools with the DS4SI-led Somerville Resident Community Design Team urban planning process as the Green Line extension opens opportunities for Transit Oriented Development.
On-Going Collaboration with Malaika Franks, Sejin Hwang and Maria Gerdyman, a group of Industrial Design alum of Rhode Island School of Design
Team member: Experience and website design, internal team communication & management (social media & public relations).
Photographer: Portraits of Elders in Boston in collaboration with Taiko player, artist and organizer, Karen Young.
Design Advisor & Fabricator for artist, healer and organizer Melissa Nussbaum Freeman.
Design Consultant: Illustration, rendering and many radical imagination conversations
Exhibitions
Our ongoing work on Social Emergency Response Centers (SERC) is featured as part of the Designing Peace
Exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Curated by Cynthia E. Smith.
Repair and Design Futures, Curated by Kate Irwin
Exhibit design, lecture and interactive installation
Curated by Ryan Dennis
Curated by Claire Grace.
Visiting Artist & Artist Mentor with Kenneth Bailey for E12 cohort of Social Practice Artist Fellows at Transformer D.C.
Speaking
Guest Lecturer for Course on Building Smart & Green Cities & Towns in a Post-Pandemic World, taught by Professor Arnel Cassanova
Guest Lecturer for Gural Spring 2020 cohort and Fall 2020 cohort with Professor Molly Rose Kaufman
Guest Lecturer for Urban Colloquium taught by Professor Mindy Thompson Fullilove
Guest Lecturer for Urban Research Methods Class taught by Professor Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz
Guest Lecturer for Urban Research Methods Class taught by Professor Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz
Keynote Speaker with Lori Lobenstine & Kenneth Bailey, DS4SI
Guest Lecturer for Urban Research Methods Class taught by Professor Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz
Guest Lecturer for Urban Research Methods Class taught by Professor Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz