CHRISTINE CENTENERA: “You have already done one interview, right?”
SHANNON ABLOH: “Mm-hmm.”
CC: “She just started with The New York Times. You know, no big deal.”
SA: [Laughs].
CC: “I'm very grateful you are doing this. I've known you for a long time and we are both similar in that we like to be a bit behind the scenes. I've observed you as a mother, a partner and a friend, and just as a general solid type of person, so I can't imagine that being thrust into the limelight like this is the easiest or the most comfortable thing.”
SA: “Yeah.”
CC: “I think everyone knows this, but you and Virgil were college sweethearts, right?”
SA: “High school … I was a junior [year 11] and he was a senior [year 12]. When he knew he was going into architecture school, he got into IIT [Illinois Institute of Technology] and we moved to the city. At the time I was like, I'm moving to Chicago! But if he were to have gotten into RISD [Rhode Island School of Design], I would have moved there too, you know?”
“We really want this interview to be about what you have put in place in Virgil's honour, his short life's work and what he was aiming for in everything he did. I have these moments all the time
