American designer and artist Stephen Burks has seen his reputation and influence soar in recent years.Image courtesy of the artist/Supplied
Sometimes a lamp is just a lamp. Sometimes it’s a cultural counterproposal – an argument, made in wood and woven fibre, for a different way of seeing the world.
When Stephen Burks brought his Triple Basket Lamp to Toronto a decade ago, it didn’t arrive with fanfare. But the object itself was making noise. Burks had taken an Alvar Aalto stool, a beloved icon of Nordic modernism, and topped it with three hand-coiled Senegalese baskets.
For Kenneth Montague, the piece was a revelation. “That lamp was the first piece of design art in my collection,” he says. “It taught me about a different way of doing design.” Montague, a Toronto-based art collector and dentist, saw not just an object but a shift in possibility: that high design didn’t have to come from European factories, or from people who studied in the same schools.
That expansive vision is the through line in Burks’s career. His studio, Stephen Burks Man Made, was founded on the belief that design is not a solitary act but a conversation – between cultures, between techniques and between people. Over the past two decades, Burks has built a body of work that links handcraft with industry.
He has also built friendships, including one with Montague, who is the founder of Wedge Curatorial Projects, a platform that has nurtured emerging Black artists and creatives for 25 years. On June 12, the two men will share a stage at the Wedge Lecture in Toronto with architects Shane Laptiste and Tura Cousins Wilson of SOCA.
Shane Lapiste and Tura Cousins-Wilson of SOCA, whose recent projects include a renovation-in-progress of the Montreal Afro-Canadian Cultural Centre.Image courtesy of the artist/Supplied
Burks, a Chicagoan who trained as an architect, has seen his reputation and influence soar in recent years. A solo retrospective, Shelter in Place, was shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This spring, he contributed to the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, collaborating with the Gee’s Bend Quilting Collective on quilts that blended homespun texture with modernist composition.
The coming Wedge Lecture, part of Toronto’s Luminato Festival, puts Burks in conversation with SOCA. Their recent projects include a renovation-in-progress of the Montreal Afro-Canadian Cultural Centre, an exhibition design for ceramicist Magdalene Odundo at the Gardiner Museum, and a renovation of Montague’s house (recently featured in Architectural Digest). “I’d like to explore how, through craft, Stephen imbues a sense of spirituality into industrially produced objects,” Laptiste says. “I find a commonality in our work in the idea that design inspiration is rooted in culture and broader social perspectives,” Cousins Wilson adds. “Aesthetics and form derive from those things.”
Toronto-based art collector and dentist Kenneth Montague.Doublespace/Supplied
The lecture unfolds in two parts: a public talk on June 12 at the Power Plant and a private roundtable the following day with young Black creatives. The format is designed to spark both visibility and mentorship. “It’s always about a global-local conversation,” Montague says. “We’re thinking expansively about Black creativity – this year it’s design, next year maybe a chef or choreographer. The point is: It’s not niche. It’s life.”
And for Burks, the message is clear: “Everyone is capable of design. That’s where we begin.”