It’s time for our first #CitizensofCentralSQ Spotlight of 2019! Meet Rosa Weinberg, Director of Studio Development at NuVu Studio, a full-time innovation school in Central Square for middle and high school students. Rosa also co-organizes Boston Tech Poetics, which features speakers working at the intersection of design, technology, and society. When Rosa isn’t working at NuVu Studio, you can find her creating her own art, dining in Central Square, or spending time with friends. Learn more about Rosa below!

“I’ve been living in Cambridgeport for about five years, and I’ve been back in the Boston area for 10 years. I grew up in Brookline and took a 12 year break and lived all over: I went to pastry school in San Francisco, started college in New York, then transferred to the London School of Economics. After that, I moved back to New York to work, went to architecture school in New Haven, but moved back to my hometown and became a licensed architect.

Before I started working at NuVu, I was looking for a job where I could work with people while using my hands, my artistic abilities, and have a meaningful impact on people’s lives. I wasn’t looking for a job teaching, but a friend introduced me to the co-founder of NuVu. When I visited the school and started working with students, I realized it covered all of the things I was looking for in a job. NuVu is a great place for me to use all of my diverse skills while making an impact on the lives of students and members of our community.

The studios I run at NuVu focus on a range of topics, but most are geared toward designing for the body through assistive devices, speculative prosthetics, and fashion; for example, students created an assistive device for a young women who had a traumatic brain injury that helps her dance without needing to be held. For the studio I’m doing right now, students are analyzing the new murals from the Central Square Mural Project and are creating fashion projects that express an idea from each mural. Other studios have had a focus more on industrial design projects, like a lamp studio that’s inspired by phenomena from nature. One of my favorite topics was a robotics studio where students looked at simple robotics that would make people think that a robot has consciousness.

When I was an architect, I made Halloween costumes and piñatas, and did a lot of urban installation work creating concrete sculptures. In the past few years I’ve turned my attention to designing for the body through traditional clothing as well as more experimental projects.

In my free time, I like to make dresses in the little sewing studio I have in my apartment. I try to find time to work on personal projects during school vacations, and over the last two years, I’ve taken a couple weeks off to do artist residencies. I did one in New York two years ago and another at a textile lab in Barcelona this past year.

I love living and working in Central Square because it really is a diverse part of Cambridge. There’s always a lot going on, and since Central is on the red line, it feels so connected to the rest of Boston and Cambridge. The small businesses give the neighborhood a lot of character and depth. I love shopping at Artist & Craftsman Supply and eating at Life Alive. I’m also very excited for Toscanini’s to come back to Central Square!”

— Rosa Weinberg, Director of Studio Development at NuVu Studio

Learn more about Nuvu Studio: https://cambridge.nuvustudio.com/

Rosa’s Work: http://www.leahrosaweinberg.com/

Know someone doing something cool in Central Square? Nominate them for a #CitizensofCentralSQ Spotlight: http://bit.ly/CitizensofCentralSQForm