BARI 2025 – A Different Day, A Different Dream

My work with BARI continues! This time around, it did feel very different. Different tone, different beneficiaries, different working relationships. But BARI’s mission remains the same: creating a community that is unafraid to push forward. And our mission remained the same, visualizing what that community looks like.

A Legacy Unmatched

We thought we were going to do a refresh of the same idea we had a year before, but then we realized everything had changed. The venue was moved from Microsoft NERD Center to Roxbury Community College (RCC). The story of BARI had to change with that because we are dealing with a different audience and a different legacy.

Right from the kickoff meeting, we were introduced to Luciano Ramos, Executive Director, Center for Economic and Social Justice. He introduced us to RCC and its history, especially what John Wilson, a prolific Boston-based artist, had to do with it. I then personally made the trip to RCC to learn about what he meant to this community

John Wilson’s work is enduring. It lives as part of the Roxbury community in Boston, and his dedication to his community will live on. That being said, our work wasn’t just to honor the conference anymore. The story, now, includes Wilson’s lasting communal impact. How do we honor that?

As I was attending a ceremony, all I could feel was love being forged in this community. From the doting eyes of parents to the nervous, darting eyes of the students. From the coldness of the February winter to the warmth in the eyes of the RCC faculty. They care about one another. That much was clear. From the event, a question rings constantly in my mind: What are we passing on to the next generations?

Unafraid Community

This time around, it felt like we had a good grasp of BARI’s identity, so went straght to testing our ideas. The identity needed to be centered around community. The feeling of people coming together, living and acting in one ecosystem has to be apparent. Let me show you some scrapped ideas.

Switchboard That Feels Like a City
A City That Feels Like a Switchboard
An Ecosystem of Happy Spheres
Different Houses and Their Roots

These ideas have their own flaws, which is why they didn’t work. The community feel was there but it wasn’t strong enough to make a point. We hit our strides though, when I sketched this out.