“Island Architecture” Exhibition
client: Pratt Institute
location: Brooklyn, NY | size: 2,000 sq ft | opened: 1993
Mindy’s desire to teach led her to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York where they were preparing to have a show of the work of women architects from Florida, Puerto Rico, the Carribean, and Long Island, with the clever title ‘Island Architecture”. As a test to see if she could handle academia and what she was about, they asked Mindy to design the show, gave her a budget of $250, and ten days to do the work.
Mindy hung the architecture panels among consignment clothes from clotheslines strung low across the gallery space. Vistors had to duck under socks, underwear, kitchen utensils, and design drawings. She provided provocative quotes on the history of women in architecture, particularly about how they were nearly forever relegated to the domestic, and how it took until Julia Morgan for female architects to get out of the house.
This resonated positively with most of the feminist population and was quite provocative for at least one female professor. Pratt asked Mindy to partake in a panel discussion and, afterwards, they offered her the coveted teaching gig. In a moment of irony, Mindy relinquished the job to move west and start a family.