Analog 2017

Charles Adler is a designer and the founder of Lost Arts, and co-founder of Kickstarter. Previously he founded the now defunct web-based arts magazine Subsystence as well as Source-ID, a multi-disciplinary design studio. Since 1994, much of his work has centered on supporting independent artists. Born in the U.K. and raised in the U.S., he is living life exploring the world.

Elizabeth Blasius is an architectural historian, writer, and cofounder of Preservation Futures, a Chicago-based firm exploring the future of historic preservation through research, action, and design. She works on preservation projects at the radical forefront of the preservation movement, including buildings designed in the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond. Elizabeth advocates to bring the recognition and resources of preservation into communities that have been historically overlooked. Prior to founding Preservation Futures in 2021, Elizabeth worked in natural disaster recovery and mitigation, providing guidance on the care of historic places in the aftermath of hurricanes, floods, and other acts of climate violence. She has been a monthly columnist for MAS Context since 2022.

Judith K. De Jong is an architect, urbanist, and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, whose work investigates the reciprocating relationships between architecture and the city, and the opportunities for design innovation in architectures and urbanisms of mass culture. Her book, New SubUrbanisms, was published in 2013. De Jong has received support from the Graham Foundation and the Great Cities Institute, where she was a 2011-2012 Faculty Scholar, and has presented at conferences in the U.S., Mexico City, Hong Kong, and Israel. She has written for MONU, Land Forum, CITE: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston, and The Journal of Architectural Education, among others, and contributed the essay “Suburban Town Center” to the Arsenal of Exclusion/Inclusion, part of the American exhibition at the 2009 International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. Her proposal “How the Strip Mall Can Save Suburbia” was a finalist in the 2010 Build A Better Burb competition.

Stewart Hicks is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a cofounder of Design With Company (Dw/Co). His interests include how literature and architecture intersect in fiction, character, type, metaphor, etc. Dw/Co translates these themes into installations, speculative urban scenarios, temporary pavilions, and designs for buildings. The practice was recognized as a Next Progressive from Architect Magazine, Next Generation from Architectural Record, and a New Talent by Metropolis, and was featured in both Chicago Biennials. Stewart is also a MacDowell Fellow and former Hyde Chair of Excellence at the University of Nebraska.

Sean Lally is educated and trained in architecture as well as landscape architecture and is a tenured professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lally is the author of The Air from Other Planets: A Brief History of Architecture to Come. He is the editor and contributor to two earlier book projects (Softspace: From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space, Routldege (2006), eds. Sean Lally and Jessica Young and ENERGIES: New Material Boundaries, Wiley Press (2009), ed. Sean Lally) and recipient of The Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome in Landscape Architecture and the Young Architects Award from the New York Architectural League. Lally hosts a biweekly podcast called “Night White Skies.”

Marcia Lausen is Director of the UIC School of Design and founder of the Chicago office of Studio/lab. At UIC Marcia leads a renown faculty of professional designers variously engaged in contemporary interdisciplinary theory and practice. At Studio/lab Marcia and her colleagues integrate four areas of communication design practice: identity, information, publication, and environment. Following the 2000 presidential election, Marcia played a leading role in Design for Democracy, a national election design reform initiative of AIGA. Her book of the same title was published in 2007 by the University of Chicago Press. Marcia was named a 2004 Fast Company Master of Design and a 2010 Fellow of AIGA. In 2015 she received the AIGA Medal.

Angee Lennard is the founder and executive director of Spudnik Press Cooperative. In 2010, Homeroom and Spudnik Press Cooperative initiated Ten x Ten, a dual-media collaboration between visual artists and musicians that explores ideas of abstraction, the collaborative process, and the translation of artistic gestures across media.

Molly Meyer is the CEO & Founder of Omni Ecosystems™ and the Co-Founder & Co-Manager of The Roof Crop, LLC. Molly leads Omni’s strategy and business development and oversees Omni’s product innovation and field operations. She founded Omni with the mission to democratize access to natural spaces, and to create an organization that continuously engages in bold endeavors that elevate the triple bottom line: ecological, financial, and social. Molly’s background couples her academic training at Stanford University in systems problem-solving and biogeochemical research with field experience in construction means and methods, gained working as a carpenter and green roofs installer as a Robert Bosch Fellow in Germany.

Parsons & Charlesworth are collaborative artists focusing on the objects and habits of humankind. Their inventive sculptural practice relies upon creating objects that allow us to examine our future selves and perhaps navigate better. Utilizing sculpture, objects, narrative writing, and photography, their work addresses key social, ecological and technological challenges of our time, including climate change and the future of work. Recent commissions include the exhibition Designs for Different Futures at the Walker Art Center and the Venice Architecture Biennale at the Central Pavilion. They began collaborating in 2010 after relocating to Chicago from the UK. They both teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

John Pobojewski is an intermedia artist/communication designer and principal at Thirst, with the studio since 2003. In 2007, John received recognition as one of Print Magazine’s New Visual Artists: 20 under 30. He has presented at MAS CONTEXT: Analog, SALT Istanbul, TEDxBGSU, Mobile Processing Chicago, SEEK, and elsewhere nationwide.

Aaron Rodgers is the co-executive director of the Hyde Park Art Center. Joining Hyde Park Art Center in 2014, Aaron has served as Director of Development since 2016. Before the Art Center, Rodgers worked in Special Events at the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago. He has been involved in Chicago art and culture for twenty years and has programmed and presented more than 500 events. In 2008, Rodgers founded Homeroom, an organization dedicated to presenting and commissioning arts programming around Chicago with a focus on conversation and collaboration across genre and media, where he served as executive director through 2017.

Micah Stanley is an architect and co-founder of Lawton Stanley Architects. LSA utilizes experience and expertise without a formal agenda, without preconceived ideas. They believe the best designs are resultant, ones you don’t see coming, but feel right because every aspect of its use and sensation has been extracted, refined, and built from a client-based creative process. In every case, in the end, every space should be a great space.

Alisa Wolfson is the EVP Head of Design at Leo Burnett, Chicago. She founded and currently oversees the agency’s Department of Design. In 2012 she received the inaugural D&AD White Pencil for her work on Recipeace, a social movement that brings people of conflict together over food. When not at work, Alisa is an active part of the Chicago design and cultural scene. She is the Design Director at Lampo, a nonprofit organization that presents experimental sound art. Alisa is also a mentor, volunteer, lecturer, and mom.