Drylongso (a Gullah-derived word meaning “ordinary” or “same old”) is an indexing and speculation of the geographies and landscapes shaped by Black cultural production. The ongoing project incorporates oral histories and archival material to inform installations, writing, craft, and drawings that collectively render everyday life of Black lands in the American South. In each study, Drylongso encounters Black land not simply as an enclosure of flora and farming, but as a deeply meaningful substrate which enables subjectivity, resistance, ritual, and memory.

Curry J. Hackett is a transdisciplinary designer, public artist, and educator. His practice, Wayside, synthesizes cultural and ecological narratives to envision meaningful work in the public realm. Noteworthy projects include the Howard Theatre Walk of Fame, the DC High Water Mark project, and his ongoing research project, Drylongso, which explores relationships between Blackness, geography, and land. Hackett began his academic career in 2019 at his alma mater Howard University, and has since taught at Yale University, Carleton University, City College of New York, and the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. He is a core member of the anti-racist design justice school Dark Matter University. Currently, Hackett is completing the master’s of architecture in urban design program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2022, Hackett was named an inaugural Journal of Architectural Education fellow and a finalist for the Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize. In 2023, Hackett won the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Creative Achievement Award for architecture education for his “Subjective Waters” studio for University of Tennessee–Knoxville, which explored Black culture and water.