Our Mission

Materials & Applications (M&A) is a Los Angeles-based organization pursuing a public, participatory, and just culture of experimentation in architecture. With a focus on architectural ideas and processes, M&A curates critical exhibitions and commissions new work by under-recognized architects, designers, and artists. Our exhibitions give space to exceptional experiments across multiple disciplines while challenging the relationship between art, architecture, and public encounters. Through an annual calendar of programs, including hands-on workshops, performances, and conversations, we explore how art and architecture can transform underutilized spaces into unexpected encounters. Since 2002, M&A has produced more than 20 temporary site-specific installations and over 100 programs presenting new ideas in art, architecture, and design. Our exhibitions and programs are always free and open to the public.

Our Work

We aspire to increase public participation in the built environment by inspiring interest in visitors with their surroundings - while they explore the latest ideas in art and architecture at a critical and experiential level.  Our exhibitions and programs are driven by the issues and conversations most relevant to the city today and are designed to be publicly engaging and accessible. We always initiate our projects with an idea or an inquiry and proceed from there. We develop our exhibitions and programs in collaboration with invited artists and architects through sustained conversations about formats, event types, selection of artists and architect teams, financing, schedule, and production. 

Since 2002, we have produced over twenty site-specific installations embedded in the residential landscape of Los Angeles. We take underutilized spaces in the city and transform them into temporary pocket parks through the commissioning of new public art and architecture. We invite the public to participate in the construction of our projects in the form of participatory building workshops.

Past projects include a temporary mini-golf project, a golden vortex in Silver Lake, a dance party in a giant bird cage, a conversation on how buildings can own themselves, a cake-off, a publication launch party, an instructional performance on urban hideouts, an investigation into zoning and its applications, a reading group on the picturesque, and a one-day foam environment installation.

All our projects are not-for-profit and we aspire to present them for free. Very rarely, we will solicit donations as entry.

We are a small operating team, which allows us to be flexible and agile in developing our public programs, but also limits our ability to take on most projects that come our way. Almost all our projects require one to two years of planning, and we prefer to develop our work slowly rather than output intensely.

We love to collaborate. It is of special importance that we develop ideas jointly with our partners, and create dialogue between our organizations, partnering artists or organizations, outside experts, and our audiences. Our past institutional partners include the Armory Center for the Arts, Cal State Long Beach Art Museum, Getty Pacific Standard Time, Mak Center for Art and Architecture, LA Forum for Architecture, Neutra VDL House, Council for Watershed Health, the Los Angeles Poverty Department, Common Field, Human Resources, Women’s Center for Creative Work, and 2426 Set amongst others.

Our History

Materials & Applications was founded in 2002 by artist Jenna Didier as a collaborative space for experimentation and research in the parking lot of a Los Angeles home. The core team was composed of Jenna Didier and Oliver Hess, with important contributions from Bruce Chan and Brian Janescko. Jia Yi Gu became director of M&A in 2016, helming the organization during its transition away from its original Silver Lake home and into sites and spaces throughout Los Angeles. A move to preserve these items and maintain the history of M&A was initiated with the launch of the Physical Archive Project, an ongoing process that can be viewed here. 

Today, M&A is organized by Kate Yeh Chiu with support from the Program Committee and the M&A Board of Directors. Propelled by a community of artists, architects, and designers, Materials & Applications remains one of the only independent spaces for art and architecture in Los Angeles dedicated to foregrounding contemporary ideas through one-to-one architecture.