Maggie Jacobstein Stern

As a Design for Freedom working group member and senior associate at MASS Design Group, Maggie Jacobstein Stern collaborated with Grace Farms Foundation on the upcoming fall exhibition, Common Good Through Crisis. To her, the story- and string-based sculptural installation demonstrates how we can maintain these moments of convergence during moments of crisis, highlighting the connections within our local and global communities.

Since 2008, MASS’s work for the built environment has embodied the ethos that all people deserve design that is good, clean, and fair. Not only does the firm aim to serve up climate-positive projects, but it also makes sure all phases of design and construction include safe and equitable labor practices. Stern and her team, including Caitlyn Taylor, the design director of the MASS Food Systems Design Lab, see their mission as in perfect alignment with that of Grace Farms’.

“We’re looking to guide visitors to the invisible and intangible relationships that took action as the crisis unfolded,” said Stern. “They have never been more important.”

Common Good Through Crisis is inspired by Grace Farms’ reaction to the covid-19 pandemic and how its network of relationships helped feed our neighbors, as well as organize and donate 2.1 million PPE to frontline workers and to native communities through Carrie Mae Weems’ Resist Covid/Take 6! campaign.