Physical Archive Project

Housed in M&A’s Chinatown office, six file cabinets were discovered, containing paper documents, notes, letters, sketches, postcards, ephemera, and other materials documenting Materials and Applications’ physical history from 2002 to 2019. These files were maintained under the directorships of Jenna Didier and Jia Yi Gu and document projects, events, the organization’s administrative status, and programming. As M&A transitions to digital record-keeping, the nomadic nature of the organization’s past programs continues to be preserved in these six file cabinets. A project initiated in the summer of 2024 aims to ensure the preservation of this collection of paper documents and old storage media, capturing the behind-the-scenes process of M&A.

The items were digitized and scanned by 2024 Getty Marrow Intern Lillian Liu. Featured below is a curated selection of items from the full collection of scans.  

Selections