Shane Allbritton and Norman Lee

As co-founders of RE:site, Shane and Norman explore notions of community, identity, and narrative in the context of public space. Drawing on a site’s cultural landscape, they create work that resonates with local or historical meaning, making unseen connections between themes and ideas. Their practice combines divergent aesthetic with interpretive design and fine art backgrounds. RE:site creates public art, memorials, and commemorative spaces that connect past and present by inviting the public to share in experiential moments, prompting collaborative viewership, curiosity, discovery, and dialogue.

Shane Allbritton’s personal and collaborative work is often a response to an ethos of place and memory. As a visual storyteller and mixed-media artist, she is deeply inspired by consultations with survivors, heroes, activists, and historians. Shane has dedicated over two decades to expressing cultural stories through art and design.

Norman Lee is the son of immigrants and part of a family that has organized for civil rights and racial justice for three generations, and he sees his artwork as an expression of that legacy. Since becoming a finalist in the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition, Norman has developed a unique approach to commemoration, defined by a sensitivity to the transcendent and an open, inclusive vision of our society.

Shane and Norman are passionate about helping communities honor difficult histories and recover the voices of those who struggled for justice, freedom and human dignity. They often engage the community as part of the creative process through workshops, interviews, and oral histories. They take a multidisciplinary approach to site-specific projects by working with experts from various fields and using diverse materials, styles, and modalities. RE:site’s body of work includes monuments, commemoratives, suspended artwork, interactive play structures for playgrounds, light sculptures, and technology-based work.

Lydia Bean

Lydia Bean, Business Director and co-owner, stewards the organizational health of RE:site and guides our community research process. A serial entrepreneur, Lydia founded the nonprofit Faith in Texas, a social justice nonprofit that organizes people for change across racial, ethnic, and religious lines. Lydia holds a Ph.D in sociology from Harvard University, and she is trained in multiple modes of research and facilitation, including ethnography, focus groups, community forums, interviews, surveys, and historical research.