Our guest is Oscar Solis, a designer, researcher, and educator who was born and raised in Pilsen and has called Chicago home for most of his life.
In this episode, Oscar speaks with host Christian Solorzano about his journey from clinical research science at UChicago to pursuing graduate work in design. He shares how receiving a camera from his mother at eleven sparked his love of visual storytelling, and how co-founding Film Front—a micro-cinema in an old Pilsen barbershop—became his first real design education.
Oscar discusses his philosophy of co-design, tracing it back to 1970s Scandinavian political activism and explaining why top-down approaches to community work never sat right with him, even as a kid. He talks about non-hierarchical pedagogy, what it means to create "queer diagrammatic forms," and why he identifies as a capital-D Designer whose Mexican and queer identities inform but don't define his practice.
The conversation explores Oscar's current work at Chicago Art Department, his exhibition "Diagrams and Systems," and why Chicago's sense of community keeps him rooted here. Oscar shares his thoughts on fear and passivity among young designers, the importance of being weird, and why joy might be a political act.
Music by the band Eighties Slang.