Material Acts is an interdisciplinary research initiative exploring the intersections of architecture, craft, and science through material experimentation and ecologies. Materials are typically described as raw resources, fixed products, or inert objects to be sourced from a shelf in the store—as commodities more than prerequisites for or products of making. Yet, such understandings of materials belie the complex logistical, economic, ecological, and technological actions that transform matter into the material substrate for our lives.
Material Acts is a collaboration between Kate Yeh Chiu and Jia Yi Gu. Initiated as part of Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide, the project takes the form of a major exhibition at Craft Contemporary, publications and essay, public programs, and an editorial project between e-flux Architecture and Craft Contemporary.
Project Team
Kate Yeh Chiu, co-director, is a designer and arts organizer, and currently the Executive Director of Materials & Applications, Editor-At-Large of the Avery Review, and half of the collaborative design project yyyy-mm-dd. She teaches at the University of Southern California School of Architecture.
Kate Yeh Chiu, co-director, is a designer and arts organizer, and currently the Executive Director of Materials & Applications, Editor-At-Large of the Avery Review, and half of the collaborative design project yyyy-mm-dd. She teaches at the University of Southern California School of Architecture.
Jia Yi Gu, co-director, is a Los Angeles-based historian, curator, and designer. She develops exhibitions, publications, and experimental programming and projects investigating cultural techniques in architecture, materials, care work, and institutional practices. She is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Harvey Mudd College and co-directs the architecture and research studio Spinagu.
Collaborators
Hilary Huckins Weidner
strat coffman
Collaborators
Hilary Huckins Weidner
strat coffman