Norman Teague

Norman Teague is a Chicago-based designer and educator whose practice focuses on using design as an agent for change and as a mechanism to empower Black and Brown communities.

In 2012, Teague worked with Theaster Gates on “12 Ballads for Huguenot House”, dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany. He exhibited in Milan during the 2015 Salon del Mobile at the Rossana Orlandi Gallery, and shortly thereafter had his first solo exhibition at Blanc Gallery in Bronzeville, Chicago. In February 2017, Teague participated in “Wall of Respect: Vestiges, Shards and Legacy of Black Power” at the Chicago Cultural Center. This exhibition chronicled the legacy of a seminal mural developed for and within Chicago’s communities located at 43rd Street and Langley Avenue, and unveiled to critical acclaim in 1967.

Along with Fo Wilson, Norman Teague is a partner in BlkHaUS studio, L3C. The team blends contemporary aesthetics with locally-sourced materials to create furniture, objects, and spaces that transform common typologies into original works representative of twenty-first century design. Sounding Bronzeville, a current commission by the Wildlife Corridor, the Field Museum, and the Chicago Park District, is a public arts project that teams Teague and Wilson with designer Chris Buchakjian.

Teague was recently selected by the Cleveland-based nonprofit gallery SPACES to contribute to its exhibition “Everlasting Plastics” at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. He was awarded a fellowship at The Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, an eighteenth-month program designed to support, invest in and share the work of emerging and established designers of color. Teague’s past projects also include creative collaborator on the exhibitions team for the Barack Obama Presidential Library, as well as partnerships with Leaders1354, The Silver Room, The Exchange Café, Chicago Architecture Foundation, and The Art Institute of Chicago.

Norman Teague is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He received his MFA in Designed Objects from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Product Design from Colombia College, Chicago. He has been featured in numerous press outlets including The New York Times, Artnet, Wallpaper* and Vogue. Teague’s work is found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Denver Art Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Art Institute of Chicago, among many others.