It may be time for a reappraisal of the old saw about architecture being the marriage of form and function. If nothing else, the innovative ideas and implications of the tents and topics covered in Made to Move: African Nomadic Design—a show conceived and executed by Risham Majeed, with input from two of her Ithaca College undergraduate classes—belie the relative modesty of both the show's form (in a small, changing college exhibition space) and the tent structures themselves.
Made to Move represented the Handwerker Gallery's first significant loan show, borrowing works from both the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University and from Amyas Naegele. With this show, and its tightly written, scrupulous catalogue, Made to Move sought to open visitors' eyes to the role that women, particularly the Tuareg and Rendille nomadic women primarily featured, are part of a larger woman-centered architectural practice that created, adapted,...