Join us for a puppet show in partnership with Bob Baker Marionette Theater at Young Architects Program (YAP)! Watch Leah Wulfman and Jin Meisenberg’s inflatable and deflatable forms become activated and animated with exciting puppet performances!

This program is free and accessible to all ages. We recommend participants arrive early to secure a spot outside the storefront and encourage audiences to bring a blanket, folding chairs, or cushions to make the viewing experience more comfortable. Please note that there is no bathroom at the storefront.

Young Architects Program (YAP), a collaboration between Leah Wulfman and 5-year-old Jin Meisenberg, invites participants to bounce upon their understanding of space through an inflatable video game and mixed reality architecture installation.

Through a series of asynchronous discussions and collaborative drawing exercises, Jin and Leah continuously imagined and brought to life the other’s images and interpretations. Young architects and forever kids can similarly freely reinterpret, reenvision, and remap the inflatable and deflatable architectural forms within the exhibition. With crayon and marker in hand, participants of all ages have the agency to be game and space makers, bridging physical and digital play learning as their own paper crayon drawings are live projection mapped onto the inflatables and existing drawings.

The two- and three-dimensional inflated forms and drawn reinterpretations play off common architectural elements and features, toy blocks and kit-of-parts building toys, but tend instead toward queer means and ends. In concept and as full-scale inflatables, the toys flop over one another; they sag, they deflate, they inflate, they get soft, they get hard, they pile and plug into each other.

Join us for a puppet show in partnership with Bob Baker Marionette Theater at Young Architects Program (YAP)! Watch Leah Wulfman and Jin Meisenberg’s inflatable and deflatable forms become activated and animated with exciting puppet performances!

This program is free and accessible to all ages. We recommend participants arrive early to secure a spot outside the storefront and encourage audiences to bring a blanket, folding chairs, or cushions to make the viewing experience more comfortable. Please note that there is no bathroom at the storefront.

Young Architects Program (YAP), a collaboration between Leah Wulfman and 5-year-old Jin Meisenberg, invites participants to bounce upon their understanding of space through an inflatable video game and mixed reality architecture installation.

Through a series of asynchronous discussions and collaborative drawing exercises, Jin and Leah continuously imagined and brought to life the other’s images and interpretations. Young architects and forever kids can similarly freely reinterpret, reenvision, and remap the inflatable and deflatable architectural forms within the exhibition. With crayon and marker in hand, participants of all ages have the agency to be game and space makers, bridging physical and digital play learning as their own paper crayon drawings are live projection mapped onto the inflatables and existing drawings.

The two- and three-dimensional inflated forms and drawn reinterpretations play off common architectural elements and features, toy blocks and kit-of-parts building toys, but tend instead toward queer means and ends. In concept and as full-scale inflatables, the toys flop over one another; they sag, they deflate, they inflate, they get soft, they get hard, they pile and plug into each other.

Videography by Jay Lamars

This program was the culmination of a three-part series hosted within We Carry the Land: reorienting, extending, and now futuring. We transformed the project into a projection surface that presented videos, short films, and digital works by Indigenous artists in pursuit of dynamic futures.

Participants included Margeaux Abeyta, Fritz Bitsoie, Olivia Camfield, Roberto Fatal, Mariah Hernandez-Fitch, Anjelica Gallegos, Jay Lamars, Suzanne Kite, Maria Maea, Selina Martinez, AnMarie Mendoza, Jazmin Romero, Bobby Joe Smith III, and Isaac Ybarra.

Photography by Bianca Montoya

We Carry the Land was an architectural exploration of space, time, and form born from an alignment of varied Indigenous foundational ways of being, designed for and installed in the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard in summer 2024.

This event was free and accessible to all.

Videography by Jay Lamars

On the final weekend of We Carry the Land, we gathered in the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard to share a toast to our summer programs and to look ahead, together, toward our next seasons.

We were excited to celebrate over to-order tacos and tamales by Irekuarhikua, desserts by Kitchen Sink, a DJ set by BROWNSKINHAZEL, beverages provided by AMASS, Brez, Ghia, and NON, goodie bags with items from Bachan’s, Greenlight, Looshi, örlö, Onyx, P.f. Candle Co., and Vacation, and a silent auction featuring Etkie, Jesse Hammer, Mahota Textiles, and Sticky Glass.

Photos by Oscar Mendoza

This event was ticketed to cover costs and provide support to M&A as we develop our upcoming exhibitions and public programs.

We welcomed you to a conversation moderated by Joel Garcia, artist and director of Meztli Projects, an organization dedicated to the creative development of Native and Indigenous creatives, and featuring Daisy Echeverri of Yerberia Mayahuel and Caracol Marketplace, and Omeatl of Hunait Tepec, on Saturday, July 27 from 12-3pm at our summer 2024 installation, We Carry the Land, in the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard.

Extending offered We Carry the Land as a space to support forms of reciprocity and kinship led by local Indigenous voices, exploring what it means to be a temporary presence on the land.

This conversation centered the decades-long efforts by Indigenous land stewards in Los Angeles to create and nurture land-based projects of self-sustainability, ancestral knowledge transmission, and cultural revitalization guided by a deep connection to the First Peoples of Los Angeles, specifically the Tongva and Tataviam communities. 

This program was free and accessible to all.

Daisy Echeverri is a Master Gardener, community-based herbalist, and medicine maker who has been a vital contributor to the garden ecosystem of Los Angeles and lead organizer for one of the longest-running marketplaces centering plant relatives and knowledge. 

Omeatl is an artist, land steward, and a lead organizer for projects such Hunait Tepec, the radio program La Voz Del Pueblo (The Peoples Voice) on KQBH 101.5 FM, El Semillero in Boyle Heights, and previously the Zapotepec Agricultural School, a garden oasis in East Los Angeles.

Thank you for joining us for the opening of Young Architects Program (YAP)!

The inflatable and deflatable architectural forms that emerged from a long-distance collaboration between Leah Wulfman and 5-year-old Jin Meisenberg were open to draw, play, and engage with as the sun set. We shared treats, cake by Celeste Perkins, and drinks in celebration of the launch of our 2024 Storefront Project Space installation!

M&A and the Indigenous Society of Architecture, Planning, and Design (ISAPD) collaborated for a conversation and workshop with Miriam Diddy and River Garza that explored ideas of mapping tangible and intangible cultural elements that reinforce sovereignty, collective power, and futurity.

As the original inhabitants and stewards of lands and waters, Indigenous peoples have resiliently carried traditions and culture through generations. Throughout history, many Indigenous mapmakers drew both space and knowledge across time. The first cartographers mapped connections across land to relatives utilizing community and ancestral thinking as planning principles to design. Understanding foundational planning principles of seven-generation design, community and multigenerational interconnectedness, and stewardship can foster holistic worldviews in practices today. What does Ancestor Geography & Mapping Indigenous Futurity look like today and how can it influence design practice? In this workshop, participants created maps to their ancestors using their own language, memories, experiences, and dreams.

This workshop was free and accessible to all.

Miriam Diddy is a planner and GIS specialist based in Albuquerque, NM. With ten years of mapping, planning, and design experience for tribal communities, her work builds upon both the tangible and intangible elements of planning. Born and raised in New Mexico as a Diné and Hopi woman, her work focuses on bridging the ties between the contemporary built environment and cultural narratives that honor and recognize the resiliency of indigenous people in everyday places. Miriam is Regional Director of Deserts & Xeric Shrublands for the Indigenous Society of Architecture, Planning & Design (ISAPD).

River T. Garza (b.1994) is an Indigenous interdisciplinary visual Artist based out of Los Angeles. Garza is Tongva, Mexican, and he is a member of Ti’at Society. His work draws on traditional Tongva aesthetics, Southern California Indigenous maritime culture, Chicano culture, Mexican art, graffiti, skateboarding, and lowrider art. Garza often explores the intersection of Tongva and Chicano/Mexican identity, history, and culture through his art practice. His work can be found in permanent and private collections.

Using local materials, participants explored decorative natural plastering and earth pigmenting techniques on adobe block. Through collective building exercises, participants learned about the many qualities that earthen building components offer that more dominant construction materials do not.

This workshop was held at We Carry the Land in the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard as part of an ongoing partnership. This workshop was limited to 12 participants and cost $80 to cover the cost of materials.

Thank you for joining us on Sunday, May 26th for coffee and an intimate walkthrough with some of the designers of We Carry the Land at the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard.

This event was free and open to all ages.

Thank you for joining us as we celebrated the opening of We Carry the Land in the M&A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard, along with Craft Contemporary’s new indoor exhibitions, Kyungmi Shin: Origin Stories and 3B Collective: Highway Hypnosis. Guests enjoyed first access to the projects, complimentary beverages, and live DJ music.

Materials & Applications members and Craft Contemporary members had free entry. Other guests were $12. For more information about this reception, please click here.

M&A was excited to present Melting Soundscapes, a performance by sound artist Martancho (Martín Velez), inside the Day/Dream installation. Melting Soundscapes was a live, generative sound piece exploring ice as a sonic material, creating intricate textures as it melted, cracked and transformed.

Doors opened at 7:30 PM and the performance began at 8:00 PM.

Melting Soundscapes was free to attend. We accepted material drop-offs for HEAT AID during the program, and a list of recommended items is here. 

Born in Bogota, Martín Velez (AKA Martancho) lives in the Los Angeles area. Martín’s work combines music, sound, science, and technology into single interactive experiences that aim to cultivate social consciousness and self-awareness within audiences at a personal and environmental level. His installation works have been presented in Los Angeles and Bogota. Martín holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and Sound Engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota and a Master in Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts. 

Thank you for joining us for an evening gathering in the shadow of Black — Still on its closing day, September 10th as we raised a toast to our 2023 summer projects and recognized the generosity of our community across LA that is critical to sustaining a vibrant landscape of cultural production in architecture.

Present Continuous, a celebration of our past, present, and ongoing commitment to experiments in public space, featured a taco bar, drinks by Amass, Health-Ade, Topo Chico, and Sanzo, donuts from Trejo’s Donuts, music by Boneless Pizza, ceramics by Vincent Yung, florals from Muddy Heaven, and goodies sponsored by Capsule Parfumerie, Fly by Jing, Plunge, and Vacation.

Photography by Christopher Lee

Many thanks to our Host Committee: Benjamin Ball, Honora Shea, Jia Yi Gu, Mira Henry, and Mimi Zeiger; and our M&A Board of Directors: Abigail Smith, Kimberli Meyer, Mishal Hashmi, Warren Techentin, and V. Mitch McEwen.

This event was ticketed to cover costs and provide support to M_A as we develop our upcoming exhibitions and public programs.

This was a celebratory penultimate afternoon at Black — Still among stalls and stands featuring Black-owned art, craft, and cultural businesses.

Vendors included Bless the Theory, Brookai, Creations by Hellena, Epiphany Soaps & Blends, Jade Vine Jewelry, Junie Bees Butta, Lucas Pincer-Flynn, Otts & Kulcha, Paige René Body Essentials, SampleHAUS, and Soul Food Company.

Food was provided by Crenshaw Coffee Co., D. Lo’s Kitchen, and Vurger Guyz with DJ sets by feeemz + Professor X.

RSVPs were encouraged; this event was free and open to the public.

12pm-1:30pm: Workshop with the Center for Restorative Justice Works
2pm-3:30pm: Meditation with Jylani Ma’at

At 12pm, the afternoon kicked off with a workshop presented by the Center For Restorative Justice Works introducing how people at an individual level can become involved in compassionate activism. The workshop included an introduction to restorative justice, non-violent and healthy communication and conflict resolution, and the importance of community and relationships in the role of healing.

All ages were encouraged to attend this workshop.

Following the workshop, at 2pm, Jylani Ma’at led groups in meditation. In Ma’at’s words, Black still*ness is an opportunity to sit in and with many B/blacknesses via an exploration of the senses. Ma’at guided visitors in exercises of simple embodiment and presence toward a sense of peace and well-being.

There were multiple meditation sessions, each limited to 10 participants.

These workshops were free and open to the public. RSVPs were encouraged.

Videography by Alex Girav

Black — Still was an evening of ambient and experimental sound from boundary-pushing artists and performers algorythm.code, 6999, and Kelman Duran featuring Harmony Holiday.

Photography by Alex Girav

Black — Still was activated with a set of site-specific soundscapes, creating a heightened engagement between visitors and the installation. The interior of the installation was reserved as a space for guests to immerse themselves in deep listening, with the surrounding courtyard acting as a space for connection and conversation. Together, the space became an environment for introspection and communal engagement around the radical possibilities of Black space and sound. 

Doors opened at 4:30pm, and performances began at 5:30pm.

Deluge is a music performance series that seeks to explore the depths and outer reaches of ambient, experimental, and avant-garde sound. The series aims to create environments for deep listening and discourse around innovative work with a focus on BIPOC artists, building upon the rich landscape of ambient and experimental music performance in Los Angeles with a socially and critically engaged approach.

12pm-1:30: Storytelling with A New Way of Life
2pm-3:30: Affirmations with BEAM

At noon, A New Way of Life sharedd their “Testif-i | Storytelling for Change” platform, which empowers formerly incarcerated women and their children to share their truth, trauma, and triumph. This day’s Testif-i session was offered by moderator Pamela Marshall and Evie, a member of the 2022 Testif-i cohort. Attendees first listened to Evie's 2022 Testif-i testimony and then joined them in an intimate conversation and learned more about their experiences with mass incarceration and reentry.

As this was an intimate event, participation was limited to 20. This workshop was best suited to adults as content may have been difficult and emotional, but also empowering and uplifting.

The afternoon continued with the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective’s (BEAM) “Dear Black People” affirmation project, designed to disrupt public space by providing messages of radical love for Black people. Each affirmation spoke to some of the unique challenges that different Black communities face, and provided a reframing dialogue that combated narratives of self-hate rooted in patriarchy, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia. BEAM is, additionally, a resource that provides guidance on mental health services, events, tools, etc. to support folks on their healing journeys. 

Participation in BEAM’s workshop was limited to 20.

These events were free and open to the public. RSVPs were required.

Schedule

12pm-1:30
Yoga with Sonya Om

2pm-3:30
Movement with Ajani Brannum

The afternoon will begin at 12pm with a yoga session for all ages led by Sonya Om. The session will feature classical yoga practice for all levels and include postures, breathing practices, deep relaxation, and meditation. Anyone can join, and modifications will be offered. 

The afternoon concludes 2-3:30pm with a workshop with movement artist Ajani Brannum. What can our bodies teach us about liberation? Better yet, what do they remember about it? In this workshop, we'll talk about, reflect on, and move with "the fullness of [our] depth of feeling" (to quote Audre Lorde). This session will be an invitation to practice right relation with ourselves, other beings, and the land that holds us. 

Brannum’s movement workshop is most appropriate for folks ages 18 and up. Participants are encouraged to bring something to write with and on. This workshop will be limited to 15 participants.

These events are free and open to the public. RSVPs are required.

Join us for the opening of Black – Still.

The afternoon begins as designers Megan Echols and Dana McKinney White of enFOLD Collective present an opening-day talk and walkthrough of the M&A summer installation in the M_A x Craft Contemporary Courtyard. 

The walkthrough is followed by an immersive sound bath experience offered by Dr. Kischa Campbell. By utilizing a number of instruments, including crystal chakra sound bowls, chimes, and drums, we will combine our energies to create an environment of healing.

The sound baths are recommended for adults and kids over the age of 10 (and younger, if they can be still for an extended period of time). Sound bath participants are encouraged to bring a yoga mat/seating cushion, comfortable clothing, and other comforts such as an eye mask.

This event is part of a series centering health and wellness, taking place throughout Summer 2023 in our installation, Black — Still, designed by artists enFOLD Collective. Read more about Black – Still here.

Join M_A for the culmination of the Gathering Tides Dreaming Workshop Series. Through this series of workshop sessions guided by artist Sara Suárez, participants have generated a collective dream journal interweaving our nighttime wanderings, visions, and sensations. This shared archive will shape a collaborative installation by Suárez and architect Regina Teng in the M_A Storefront project space.

In this live group reading of our collective dream journal, we will explore, reflect on, and give voice to this “reservoir” of dreams and create voice recordings that will be included in the sound composition and installation designed by Suárez and Teng. 

The group reading will start at 3:30 pm. Stop by anytime between 3-6 to contribute and discover dreams, create voice recordings, and meet new friends.

The event is free to attend and all are welcome. We would appreciate it if you could RSVP here.

Join M_A for a fourth workshop that ventures into the mutable, evolving landscape of sleep and dreaming. Through artist-led dream sharing, collective writing, and conversation, our night-time dreams become an abundant and generative resource that shapes a collaborative installation concept by artist Sara Suárez and designer Regina Teng for the M_A Storefront opening in Spring 2023. 

This 2-hour workshop, guided by Sara Suárez, is part of a generative series that aims to produce a “reservoir” of dream content. Participants will explore new forms of vulnerability and intimacy that reframe collective dreaming as an open, plastic space that may reveal and cultivate radical modes of relationality, community care, and futurist speculation. The installation that will take shape from this shared archive of images, sensations, symbols, and stories will complement HEAT AID 2023. 

With permission, materials generated in this workshop will be incorporated into the physical space, opening in spring 2023, and participants will be credited as project contributors. 

Participation is free. This session will take place virtually (via Zoom), and a Zoom link will be circulated following your RSVP.

Gathering Tides is a series of workshops held in the winter of 2022-2023. These workshops will explore interconnectivities and relationalities vis a vis dream-sharing workshops, each uniquely sited across Los Angeles or online. An installation at the M&A Storefront will emerge from the collection of shared dreams. This orientation around dreaming situates the M_A Storefront in the past, present, and future, all the while reflecting on the necessity of resource-sharing, mutual aid, and material reuse as embodied by its coexistence in the space with HEAT AID.

Sara Suárez is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist working across experimental film, sound composition and social practice, interested in sensory and spatial perception, shared spaces and landscapes, collective memory, and co-creative processes. 

Her works include visual and sonic landscape studies that incorporate audio collage, electronic composition, and analog film processes. She is currently developing a collection of work considering the physical and social experiences of darkness, sleep, and dreaming, and the forces that degrade these essential needs. Her work has been featured by LA Filmforum, Slamdance, Alchemy Film Festival, ICDOCS, Chicago Underground Film Festival and other venues. 

Suárez is also the co-founder of virtual care lab, an interdisciplinary project platform and creative community interrogating issues of care, solidarity, co-creation, and trust in virtual space. She completed her MFA at CalArts and works in Los Angeles.

Regina Teng is an architectural designer and founding principal of GINAA. Her work focuses on the atmospheric intersections of environment, nature, and culture. A native Angeleno, she has worked and exhibited internationally, including in Tokyo, Sydney, Zurich, Shanghai and the UK. Regina’s current research examines the potential for optic caustics, the reflection, refraction, and projection of light through materials, to operate as part of a passive thermal strategy.

She is also Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University GSAPP, and has taught previously at USC, UCLA, and Princeton University. 

Join M_A for a workshop that ventures into the mutable, evolving landscape of sleep and dreaming. Through artist-led dream sharing, collective writing, and conversation, our night-time dreams become an abundant and generative resource that shapes a collaborative installation concept by artist Sara Suárez and designer Regina Teng for the M_A Storefront opening in Spring 2023. 

This 2-hour workshop, guided by Sara Suárez, is part of a generative series that aims to produce a “reservoir” of dream content. Participants will explore new forms of vulnerability and intimacy that reframe collective dreaming as an open, plastic space that may reveal and cultivate radical modes of relationality, community care, and futurist speculation. The installation that will take shape from this shared archive of images, sensations, symbols, and stories will complement HEAT AID 2023. 

With permission, materials generated in this workshop will be incorporated into the physical space, opening in spring 2023, and participants will be credited as project contributors. 

Participation is free. This session will take place virtually (via Zoom), and a Zoom link will be circulated following your RSVP.

Gathering Tides is a series of workshops held in the winter of 2022-2023. These workshops will explore interconnectivities and relationalities vis a vis dream-sharing workshops, each uniquely sited across Los Angeles or online. An installation at the M_A Storefront will emerge from the collection of shared dreams. This orientation around dreaming situates the M_A Storefront in the past, present, and future, all the while reflecting on the necessity of resource-sharing, mutual aid, and material reuse as embodied by its coexistence in the space with HEAT AID.

Sara Suárez is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist working across experimental film, sound composition and social practice, interested in sensory and spatial perception, shared spaces and landscapes, collective memory, and co-creative processes. 

Her works include visual and sonic landscape studies that incorporate audio collage, electronic composition, and analog film processes. She is currently developing a collection of work considering the physical and social experiences of darkness, sleep, and dreaming, and the forces that degrade these essential needs. Her work has been featured by LA Filmforum, Slamdance, Alchemy Film Festival, ICDOCS, Chicago Underground Film Festival and other venues. 

Suárez is also the co-founder of virtual care lab, an interdisciplinary project platform and creative community interrogating issues of care, solidarity, co-creation, and trust in virtual space. She completed her MFA at CalArts and works in Los Angeles.

Regina Teng is an architectural designer and founding principal of GINAA. Her work focuses on the atmospheric intersections of environment, nature, and culture. A native Angeleno, she has worked and exhibited internationally, including in Tokyo, Sydney, Zurich, Shanghai and the UK. Regina’s current research examines the potential for optic caustics, the reflection, refraction, and projection of light through materials, to operate as part of a passive thermal strategy.

She is also Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University GSAPP, and has taught previously at USC, UCLA, and Princeton University. 

Join M_A for a workshop that ventures into the mutable, evolving landscape of sleep and dreaming. Through artist-led dream sharing, collective writing, and conversation, our night-time dreams become an abundant and generative resource that shapes a collaborative installation concept by artist Sara Suárez and designer Regina Teng for the M_A Storefront opening in Spring 2023. 

This 2-hour workshop, guided by Sara Suárez, is part of a generative series that aims to produce a “reservoir” of dream content. Participants will explore new forms of vulnerability and intimacy that reframe collective dreaming as an open, plastic space that may reveal and cultivate radical modes of relationality, community care, and futurist speculation. The installation that will take shape from this shared archive of images, sensations, symbols, and stories will complement HEAT AID 2023. 

With permission, materials generated in this workshop will be incorporated into the physical space, opening in spring 2023, and participants will be credited as project contributors. 

Participation is free. This session will take place virtually (via Zoom), and a Zoom link will be circulated following your RSVP.

Gathering Tides is a series of workshops held in the winter of 2022-2023. These workshops will explore interconnectivities and relationalities vis a vis dream-sharing workshops, each uniquely sited across Los Angeles or online. An installation at the M&A Storefront will emerge from the collection of shared dreams. This orientation around dreaming situates the M_A Storefront in the past, present, and future, all the while reflecting on the necessity of resource-sharing, mutual aid, and material reuse as embodied by its coexistence in the space with HEAT AID.

Sara Suárez is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist working across experimental film, sound composition and social practice, interested in sensory and spatial perception, shared spaces and landscapes, collective memory, and co-creative processes. 

Her works include visual and sonic landscape studies that incorporate audio collage, electronic composition, and analog film processes. She is currently developing a collection of work considering the physical and social experiences of darkness, sleep, and dreaming, and the forces that degrade these essential needs. Her work has been featured by LA Filmforum, Slamdance, Alchemy Film Festival, ICDOCS, Chicago Underground Film Festival and other venues. 

Suárez is also the co-founder of virtual care lab, an interdisciplinary project platform and creative community interrogating issues of care, solidarity, co-creation, and trust in virtual space. She completed her MFA at CalArts and works in Los Angeles.

Regina Teng is an architectural designer and founding principal of GINAA. Her work focuses on the atmospheric intersections of environment, nature, and culture. A native Angeleno, she has worked and exhibited internationally, including in Tokyo, Sydney, Zurich, Shanghai and the UK. Regina’s current research examines the potential for optic caustics, the reflection, refraction, and projection of light through materials, to operate as part of a passive thermal strategy.

She is also Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University GSAPP, and has taught previously at USC, UCLA, and Princeton University. 

Join us for the Los Angeles launch of Disc Journal’s second issue, which takes up the theme of intimacy.

Commissioned by Disc Journal, the design collective Office Party was invited to develop two events, one hosted in New York City and the other in Los Angeles, that explore opposing models of intimacy unique to two common party environments: the dance and the dinner party. The respectively loud and quiet spaces of each gathering calibrate the terms of interpersonal engagement—how close do you need to be to speak with someone, what kind of body language is appropriate, what can other people see you do, and what can slide unnoticed, masked by the distractions of the party. 

The quiet launch event, hosted at the Materials & Applications Storefront in Los Angeles, converts the noise of the gathering’s Sunset Boulevard venue into the polite silence of a dinner party through the installation of a horizontal, 4-by-8 ft acoustically-engineered table. Sound-absorbing panels on the surface of the dinner table and the surrounding walls deaden ambient noise, bringing the conversation of guests, the sounds of eating, and the percussion of utensils to the fore. The remaining noises are recorded by conspicuously-placed microphones that sit as centerpieces on the table, making diners aware of how their voices and actions might be transmitted across the space of the party.

The remnants of the launch party will be left in place for display in the M_A Storefront, leaving traces of the evening’s activities. Recorded sounds of the event will be made available for remote listening, reactivating the guests’ conversations and discussions of the publication.

Disc explores the entanglements between architecture, media, and technology. Each issue has a different theme, form, and design. Disc is editorially independent and para-institutional.

Office Party is an international research and design collective specializing in the production of temporary events, installations, and exhibitions. With an attention to sustainable material systems and community resource-pooling, the office critically examines the role of parties and similar ephemeral spaces as the origin of complex social and material networks with urban, political, and environmental effects. Office Party further investigates the ways that parties provide insight into the development of architecture as a temporary and responsive mode of space-making through written and editorial work.

Join M_A for a workshop that ventures into the mutable, evolving landscape of sleep and dreaming. Through artist-led dream sharing, collective writing, and conversation, our night-time dreams become an abundant and generative resource that shapes a collaborative installation concept by artist Sara Suárez and designer Regina Teng for the M_A Storefront opening in 2023. 

This 2-hour workshop, guided by Sara Suárez, is the first in a generative series that aims to produce a “reservoir” of dream content. Participants will explore new forms of vulnerability and intimacy that reframe collective dreaming as an open, plastic space that may reveal and cultivate radical modes of relationality, community care, and futurist speculation. The installation that will take shape from this shared archive of images, sensations, symbols, and stories will complement HEAT AID 2023.

With permission, materials generated in this workshop will be incorporated into the physical space, opening in spring 2023, and participants will be credited as project contributors.

Participation is free. This session will take place virtually (via Zoom), and a Zoom link will be circulated following your RSVP.

Gathering Tides I is the first in a series of workshops held in the winter of 2022-2023. These workshops will explore interconnectivities and relationalities vis a vis dream-sharing workshops, each uniquely sited across Los Angeles or online. An installation at the M&A Storefront will emerge from the collection of shared dreams. This orientation around dreaming situates the M_A Storefront in the past, present, and future, all the while reflecting on the necessity of resource-sharing, mutual aid, and material reuse as embodied by its coexistence in the space with HEAT AID.

Sara Suárez is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist working across experimental film, sound composition and social practice, interested in sensory and spatial perception, shared spaces and landscapes, collective memory, and co-creative processes. 

Her works include visual and sonic landscape studies that incorporate audio collage, electronic composition, and analog film processes. She is currently developing a collection of work considering the physical and social experiences of darkness, sleep, and dreaming, and the forces that degrade these essential needs. Her work has been featured by LA Filmforum, Slamdance, Alchemy Film Festival, ICDOCS, Chicago Underground Film Festival and other venues. 

Suárez is also the co-founder of virtual care lab, an interdisciplinary project platform and creative community interrogating issues of care, solidarity, co-creation, and trust in virtual space. She completed her MFA at CalArts and works in Los Angeles.

Regina Teng is an architectural designer and founding principal of GINAA. Her work focuses on the atmospheric intersections of environment, nature, and culture. A native Angeleno, she has worked and exhibited internationally, including in Tokyo, Sydney, Zurich, Shanghai and the UK. Regina’s current research examines the potential for optic caustics, the reflection, refraction, and projection of light through materials, to operate as part of a passive thermal strategy.

She is also Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University GSAPP, and has taught previously at USC, UCLA, and Princeton University. 

Materials & Applications is happy to announce the public launch of M&A Radio, Los Angeles’ only terrestrial architecture radio program, on 96.7 KGAP-LP FM. We are now broadcasting on 96.7 KGAP-LP FM and streaming online, here.

M&A Architecture Radio publishes audio issues of contributions --podcast episodes, field recordings, interviews, experiments, etc-- about the built environment. We publish two issues on air each year, with each broadcasting via 96.7 KGAP from our terrestrial tower in Burbank for six months out of the year. Over the air, these works are played on a random loop, so listeners encounter found and coincidental audio. Listeners may also tune in from this website to find a curated archive of projects that we are broadcasting via our radio tower, as well as works that are exclusive to our website due to profane content.

About K-GAP 96.7

KGAP (96.7 FM) is an architecture radio station run by Materials & Applications and broadcasting from the hills of Burbank, California. KGAP partners with Los Angeles-based radio network Lookout FM to share critical and curated programming centering on architecture, art, and critical practices.  

About Lookout FM 

LOOKOUT FM is a new independent FM radio network in Los Angeles. Broadcasting in Burbank on 96.7FM KGAP and Hollywood on 99.1FM KZUT, LOOKOUT FM is an observatory: curated audio programming with a wide outlook: varied perspectives on the world expressed through music, documentaries, lectures, poetry, and discussion.  Partnered with voices from the indigenous community, the music community, the arts community, and the academic community, LOOKOUT FM offers long-term perspectives on that which lasts: nature, and the arts.

On the occasion of Veil Craft, Materials & Applications with Craft Contemporary presents a conversation between practitioners across art and architecture on the topic of textiles and fibers. Veil Craft draws upon the materiality of a city under constant construction, transforming the debris netting that adorns building sites into a meditative pocket park that gestures toward cultures of maintenance, histories of gendered labor, and the presentation of the body. Threads convenes a community formed through practices committed to woven, soft, tactile material to explore connections between and beyond.

PARTICIPANTS

Ahree Lee is a multi-disciplinary artist working in video, new media, and textiles. Lee received her BA from Yale University in English literature and a MFA in graphic design from Yale School of Art. Her commissions include the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, the 01SJ Biennial, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, and the Sundance Channel. Her honors include an artist residency at Santa Fe Art Institute and a Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Award nomination, and her work has been written about in Hyperallergic, Metropolis, and Fast Company.

Casey Baden is a multidisciplinary artist working with textiles, text, natural dye, sun-lit photographic exposures, painting, weaving, clay, and installation. Born and raised in Houston, TX, she completed her BFA at New York University, 2014, and her MFA at California Institute of the Arts, 2020. Combing craft (the handmade, embodied knowledge, enduring labor) with figuration, intimate personal experience, and the domestic, Baden attempts to foster the critical space of emotion and create opportunities for immersion and embodiment. Presently she is the co-founder of an artist-run space and arts fabrication project called Full Service Creative and the co-founder of an up-and-coming fiber resource center, Textile Resource LA.

Current Interests is a Los Angeles-based architectural design studio founded by Matthew Au and Mira Henry. As a creative collaboration, Current Interests’ built work is grounded in notions of material specificity, color relationships, assembly details, and an engagement in critical cultural thinking. Matthew and Mira are design faculty at Southern California Institute for Architecture and have visiting faculty appointments at Princeton University and Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Felecia Davis’ work in computational textiles questions how we live as she re-imagines how we might use textiles in our daily lives and in architecture. Computational textiles are textiles that respond to cues in the environment or use the changeable properties of the material itself to communicate information, thereby transforming how we communicate, socialize, and use space. Davis is interested in developing computational methods and designs in relation to specific bodies in specific places, engaging specific social, cultural, and political constructions.

Figure is a San Francisco-based architecture collective led by James Leng and Jennifer Ly, RA. Their work explores relationships between art, architecture, and community. Their current interests include unexpected materials, dollhouses, and rocks. James and Jennifer received their architectural education from Harvard Graduate School of Design and the University of California, Berkeley. They have received numerous fellowships and awards, and have been published in The Architectural Review, Log, and CLOG, among others. They are also lecturers at UC Berkeley.

Minga Opazo is a fourth-generation textile crafter who explores the relationship between climate change, contemporary textile production, and Chilean textile history and design. Born in Chile, Minga immigrated to Los Angeles at the age of 16. She completed her BFA at University of California, Berkeley in 2016 and her MFA at California Institute of the Arts, 2020. Opazo has exhibited works internationally including at the Museum of Visual Art, Santiago, Chile, CAM Gallery, ACRE, the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, and CalArts. She has been awarded various residencies including at the Banff Centre, ACRE, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, The REEF, Anderson Ranch Art Center, and MASS MoCA. She recently had her work published in Artforum and Lumzine.