Urban Tapestry: A Conversation with Tameka Baba

This conversation between landscape architect Tameka Baba and curator Mistura Allison draws on Baba’s ongoing research and creative practice as a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Her project, Urban Tapestry, explores how composition, symbolism, and narrative can respond to challenges of climate adaptation, comfort, and social interaction. Centered on Piazza del Popolo, the work includes a photographic catalog analyzing the piazza’s everyday uses, alongside a series of woven studies that investigate material processes and participatory design while speculating future possibilities. Together, these elements reimagine the piazza as a resilient, scenographic, and socially engaging landscape. The conversation situates this research within broader questions of public space and memory.

In collaboration with Black History Month Florence