Wedge Gallery Podcast Wedge Gallery

In this episode we are joined by Elena Manferdini. Elena Manferdini, principal of Atelier Manferdini, has twenty years of professional experience in architecture, public art, design, and education. She currently teaches at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) where she serves as the Graduate Programs Chair. In 2019, Manferdini was honored with the ICON Award as part of the LA Design Festival, which is a prize that recognizes iconic women who have made an indelible mark on Los Angeles, culture, and society in general through their work, character, and creative leadership. With a body of work that spans through various scales and disciplines of design, her eponymous atelier has completed projects over three continents. Manferdini loves art, technology, and inventions, and she deeply believes in the positive power of education, community outreach, and creative collaboration. This interview is part of the Wedge Gallery series Lectures Interviews Exhibitions. Learn more at wedgegallery.woodbury.edu.

In this episode we are joined by Folly Feast Lab. Folly Feast Lab creates visually-led immersive and interactive experiences to address present social and urban themes, co-founded by Viviane El Kmati and Yara Feghali.

Viviane is a Lebanese designer and creative technologist working at the intersection of architecture, storytelling, and artificial intelligence technologies. She has led projects for Google R&D, Alex McDowell, Worldbuilding media lab UCS, and Liam Young.

Yara is a French and Lebanese architectural designer working at the intersection of architecture, and immersive technologies. She is a faculty at UCLA A.UD and has taught at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles, and the Städelschule Architecture Class in Frankfurt.

This interview is part of the Lectures Interviews Exhibitions series at the Wedge Gallery. Learn more at wedgegallery.woodbury.edu.

In this episode we are joined by Los Angeles based artist Jonni Cheatwood. Jonni Cheatwood is a Brazilian-American abstract and textile artist living and working in Los Angeles. He was born in Thousand Oaks, California on July 21, 1986. Upon graduating high school, Jonni initially moved to Flagstaff, Arizona to join the men’s basketball team at Northern Arizona University. That plan was short lived, and he chose to attend Arizona State University, where he graduated with his B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies, focusing on Education and Film & Media Production. While at Arizona State, Jonni took up painting as a hobby, which turned into a passion, which eventually turned into a career.

Along with the powers of social media sites such as Tumblr and Instagram, Jonni was approached by R&B legend Usher to collaborate on projects with Target, Yoobi and Pepsi, allowing Jonni to move back to Los Angeles in 2015 with his wife, Amy, to pursue painting full-time.

Since returning to Los Angeles, he has taken residencies at Hooper Projects, which exposed him to the gallery side of the art world. He is currently represented by Over the Influence (Los Angeles/Hong Kong), BEERS London (London), and Makasiini Contemporary (Turku, Finland) and he has participated in solo and group shows in Beirut, Australia, South Korea, London, Hong Kong, Finland, Berlin, France and all over The US.

This interview is part of the Lectures Interviews Exhibitions series at the Wedge Gallery. Learn more at wedgegallery.woodbury.edu.

In this episode we are joined by Germane Barnes. Barnes’ research and design practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity. Mining architecture’s social and political agency, he examines how the built environment influences black domesticity. His design and research contributions have been published and exhibited in several international institutions. Most notably, The Museum of Modern Art, The Graham Foundation, The New York Times, Architect Magazine, DesignMIAMI/ Art Basel, The Swiss Institute, Metropolis Magazine, Curbed, and The National Museum of African American History where he was identified as one of the future designers on the rise.

This interview is part of the Lectures Interviews Exhibitions series at the Wedge Gallery. Learn more at wedgegallery.woodbury.edu.

Curated by Ryan Tyler Martinez and hosted by Woodbury School of Architecture’s Wedge Gallery, Lectures Interviews Exhibitions challenges the status quo of exhibiting physical objects by replacing them with podcasts, pre-recorded lectures, interactive architecture applications, and animations. In this episode of the Wedge Gallery Podcast, you get a short introduction to the exhibition which is launching on March 8th, 2021.