Materials & Applications presents Staging Construction, a new program series that explores construction as both a practice and a performance. Through its messy web of relations and procedures, construction practices draws architecture into the orbit of other systems, including labor practices, managerial models, governmental structures, and negotiated temporalities. The program will present a new architectural installation Scoring, Building by Michelle Chang, alongside a calendar of public programs that investigates architecture’s entanglement with industry, logistics, standards, and manual labor.
Michelle Chang directs JaJa Co and teaches architecture. She founded her independent practice in 2014 after working in offices in New York, Boston, and San Francisco. Her design work experiments with the overlaps between and among film, installation, music, teaching, and building. Chang holds a master’s of architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a bachelor's of arts in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. She is a former MacDowell Colony Fellow, Wortham Fellow, and a recipient of the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers. In her research, Chang studies the techniques and histories of architectural representation. She is currently an assistant professor of architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design and previously taught at Rice, University of California Berkeley, California College of the Arts, and Northeastern University.
Jia Gu is an architectural researcher, designer, and cultural producer. She holds a bachelor's of arts in visual arts from University of California San Diego with Honors and an master in architecturerom University of California Los Angeles with distinction. She is currently director and curator of Materials & Applications, a doctoral candidate in the University of California Los Angeles Architecture and Urban Design and codirector of research and creative studio Spinagu with Maxi Spina since 2016.
The Contemporary Council of Materials & Applications (M&A) is a programming committee of dedicated culturally engaged young professionals who serve as a resource group for M&A. The council is comprised of committed members who understand M&A’s vision, culture, and institutional position in Los Angeles, and are interested in helping M&A advance its mission through public programming, development, and outreach. The 2019–20 Contemporary Council is composed by Laida Aguirre, Audrey Bauer, James Diewald, Gary Fox, Melina Girardi, Jesse Hammer, Dana McKinney, Jason Nguyen, Dami Olufowoshe, and Emma Price.
Materials & Application (M&A) is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to expanding the role of art and architecture in the public sphere through critical exhibitions and public programs. The organization brings new ideas and creative experimentation into public dialogue through the exhibition of built, material projects, alongside critical public programs, including performances, discussions, debates, workshops and hands-on building workshops. Since 2003, they have produced over 25 site-specific installations embedded in the landscape of Los Angeles, and over one hundred programs exploring the relationship between architecture and the public sphere. The exhibitions and programs are always free and open to the public
Image: Michelle Jaja Chang, mock-up of drywall construction according to the implementation of specific material guidelines and their translation into a score, Boston, 2019.
