In this episode, artist Roberto Lugo shares more about why his roots + culture matter especially in the field of art and design.

This week?s DMTV Milkshake guest is artist, ceramicist, social activist, poet and educator Roberto Lugo, coming to us from his studio in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.
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Place is central to Lugo?s work, which fearlessly mixes classical references with contemporary activism ? a pottery parallel to Kehinde Wiley?s defiantly genre-mixing portraiture. ?Kensington is also known as the Badlands,? Lugo says. ?It’s not necessarily the neighborhood that people would have chosen to come from. But I use it as a way to talk about how there are so many people who are stifled ? and unable to become designers and makers ? because those opportunities were never given to them. By me going out into the world ? and ensuring that people know exactly where I come from ? people who come from that place know they have the capacity to become designers themselves. And people who aren?t from that place can see what we?re capable of.?
Everyone will have ample opportunity to see Lugo?s work this season, as it will feature in exhibitions across the country: at the University of Pennsylvania?s Arthur Ross Gallery, at the Fairfield University Art Museum, at Philadelphia?s Wexler Gallery, and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art?s Afrofuturist Period Room (see Roberto?s 2021 piece ?Queen Abolition? illustrated in the exhibition overview). Heady t...