raya marie hazell (she/they, b. 1998, Atlanta, GA, USA) works at the boundaries between collage, installation, and ritual performance. In her work, hazell focuses on concepts of death and deletion to explore contradictions in how we conceive notions of control and privacy. Embracing collage as a method, she constructs sculptural installations of 'home' using found objects, her own furniture, and collaged family archives. In these layered diaristic investigations, she contrasts the ephemerality of bodies, precarious permanence of archives, and interminability of digital data. The result transforms images and letters from her own archives into inviting reflections on home, motherhood, surveillance and grief.
Central to raya's practice is a belief in the transformative power of collective mourning. In a time of compounding crises, she offers grief as a political framework for understanding the roots of violence and seeding new worlds. In her ritual practice, she facilitates grief rituals as playful, somatic containers for alchemizing loss and choreographing alternative relations. As the daughter of multiple diasporas, she feels compelled to investigate how making new ritual can allow for a re-connection to place and collectivity within diasporic communities.
raya received a B.A in Human-Computer Interaction and Design and a certificate in Visual Arts from Princeton University. She has been awarded residencies internationally including the Technologies of Critical Conscientization Research Residency in São Paulo, Brazil, Materia Abierta in Mexico City, Mexico, 880 Residency Project in Los Angeles, California, Somewhere on Earth in Landers, California, and The Hundredth Hill in Bloomington, Indiana. In 2022, she was awarded the Princeton Toni Morrison Prize in Visual Arts for her solo exhibition, sarry about saying you dont.
raya also founded Blooming Ghost a creative technology and research studio that supports clients working in and around critical technology, climate, new internets, and creative tools. She is one-half of tomorrow soup, a collaborative creative practice that explores the potential for alternative social and digital spaces that hold space for communal care, queer joy, and climate grief.
raya is currently based in Atlanta, but in recent years has wandered (most deeply) in Los Angeles, New York, the Bay Area, Princeton, D.C, Mexico, and Brazil.
Education
2022 B.A Human Computer Interaction
& Design, Princeton University
2022 Certificate in Visual Arts,
Princeton University
Fellowships & Awards
2023 Logic School Fellow
2022 Toni Morrison Prize,
Lewis Center for the Arts
Professional Experience
Feb 2023 - 2025
Creative Experience Designer, Spherical [Freelance]
Feb 2023 - 2025
Visual Designer, Spherical [Freelance]
Feb 2024 - Present
Visual Designer, Logic(s) Magazine [Freelance]
Dec 2022 - May 2023
Concept Designer, Plexus [Freelance]
May 2022 - Mar 2023
Founding Designer, Tangible Materials
Feb 2021 - July 2021
Product Designer, Health Special Projects, Apple
Mar 2019 - May 2021
Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, Adora Experiences
*Acquired by Full Measure Education in March 2021
June 2020 - August 2020
UX Intern, IS&T, Apple