Siting Ritual: Holding Renewal, Inscribing Resilience

Kristen Mimms Scavnicky is an Ohio-born artist, designer, and educator whose work explores how architecture and craft can serve as vessels for cultural storytelling, memory, and well-being, now residing in Akron, Ohio. She is the founder of Kin Lore Studio, a design practice focused on translating cultural narratives into crafted objects, drawings, and installations. Her work has been exhibited regionally and published in UCLA POOL and Dichotomy Journal. Scavnicky’s practice extends beyond the studio into participatory community art projects that foreground inclusivity and collective storytelling. She has directed and facilitated events such as WTF is Happening: Community Gathering in Kent, Ohio, the First Serve Day of Service art and spatial experience in North Hill, Ohio, and the Home is Where the Tin Is workshop at Harvard GSD’s Black in Design Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. These projects bring residents and participants into the creative process through workshops, collective making, and site-specific installations, affirming everyday rituals and cultural presence as essential to shared belonging. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Kent State University, where she integrates community engagement, narrative, and mindful practice into her teaching and creative research.