The American Design Collective began as a solo project. Its first systems, archival methodology, Registry infrastructure, research workflows and initial body of records were developed by founder and editor Jeredan Surgeon in Greensboro, North Carolina.
That origin is part of ADC’s history, but it is not intended to be its permanent organizational structure.
ADC is being built as an institution capable of supporting a national archival, editorial and cultural program. Doing that responsibly will require expertise, independent judgment, distributed leadership, and people whose work extends far beyond what any single founder can provide.
Our goal is to begin that transition before the end of 2026.
Everything on this page is marked In place or Intended. Nothing is described as operating until it does.
Day-to-day responsibility for the Registry, product development, editorial direction, partnerships and institutional development remains concentrated with the founder while the organization moves through its initial launch period.
The work already produced during this period serves as the proof of concept. The next phase is building the organization around it.
We disclose that plainly because institutional maturity should be demonstrated rather than implied.
Ordered as the copy names them. All intended; none is a current appointment.
ADC expects to develop leadership across several distinct areas of work. Those functions should not remain permanently concentrated in one person. During the remainder of 2026, ADC intends to begin assembling a combination of senior staff, advisers and independent professional relationships capable of providing both operating expertise and meaningful institutional oversight.
We are particularly interested in people with experience in
Its role will not be to select artists for inclusion or substitute collective taste for archival standards. Its purpose will be to strengthen the institution around the Registry.
Membership and responsibilities will be published as appointments are made.
It would review
Until that body exists, ADC will not describe itself as having independent governance that it does not yet possess.
Financial support does not purchase a place in the historical record.
Partners may support a city, archive, field of practice, publication, event or other ADC program. They may not determine whom the Registry documents, what factual findings ADC publishes, how records are characterized, or whether accurate information is removed.
The same principle applies to the founder, staff, advisers, institutional partners, and subjects themselves. ADC’s archival and editorial standards are intended to govern the record regardless of who finances the work required to create it.
The full statement — what a partner may choose and what it may not — is set out on support & partnerships.
A project that documents creative communities will inevitably encounter people and institutions with whom ADC, its leadership, or its partners have existing relationships. Those relationships should not be hidden.
ADC is developing a formal conflict-of-interest policy. Material conflicts relevant to published work will be disclosed where appropriate.
Every row is intended. None operates today.
ADC is therefore developing procedures for the following.
The cultural record should survive the organization that assembled it.
Founding support does more than expand the number of records ADC can process. It helps turn a successful founder-built prototype into a durable organization: supporting staff, research, fieldwork, editorial production, professional services, governance, preservation systems, and the relationships required to work responsibly inside creative communities.
Founding Partners will receive permanent recognition for helping ADC make that transition.
They do not receive control over it.
Founder & Editor
Biography to follow.
Additional leadership, editorial appointments, advisers and governance roles will be added publicly as they are established.
As ADC grows, we intend to publish enough information for artists, institutions, partners and the public to understand who is responsible for the organization and how it operates. That will include appropriate information about organizational structure, leadership, governance, sponsorship policy, conflicts of interest, archival stewardship and financial accountability as those systems are established.
ADC is young. We think the responsible response to that fact is not to imitate the appearance of an old institution.
It is to build one deliberately.