UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A project led by Penn State researcher Felecia Davis that explores Black culture, its relationship to technology, and concepts of translation in architectural design is featured in the “Material Acts: Experimentation in Architecture and Design” exhibition that opened Sept. 28 at the Craft Contemporary arts museum in Los Angeles.

Davis, associate professor of architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School and director of the Computational Textiles Lab (SOFTLAB) in the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing (SCDC), and her SOFTLAB team contributed six pieces from their “Dreadlock Series” project, four of which are newly commissioned by the Craft Contemporary.

Curated by Kate Yeh Chiu and Jia Yi Gu, “Material Acts considers materials as participants in and outputs of cultural practices and techniques,” contains work from more than 20 contemporary designers, architects and artists “who approach materials as research, processes and systems,” according to the exhibition news release.

There are five sections of material production that will be on display in the exhibition: Animating, Disassembling, Feeding, Re-fusing and Stitching. Davis and her team’s work can be found anchoring the Stitching portion of the main exhibition.

“We are interested in generative conversations about Black culture and architectural design,” she said.

The project team is comprised of graduate student researchers Ian Danner, from the College of Arts and Architecture’s School of Visual Arts; Stuckeman School architecture master’s degree student Setareh Farashzadeh; and recent master’s alumnae Aysan Jafarzadeh and Hiranshi Patel. Exhibition production assistance was provided by Stuckeman School staff members Jamie Heilman, Allan Sutley and Steve White Sr. in the Stuckeman Shop.

Additionally, an interdisciplinary collaborative project led by Davis and fellow SCDC researcher Benay Gürsoy, assistant professor of architecture and director of the Form and Matter Lab (ForMat Lab), titled “MycoKnit,” will be featured in a material sample library that is part of the “Material Acts” exhibition.

The work from Davis’ SOFTLAB team and Gürsoy’s ForMat Lab team explores the use of knitted textiles as a framework and reinforcement system to develop fiber composite mycelium-based architectural structures or, in other words, sustainable building materials.

Researchers on Davis and Gürsoy’s “MycoKnit” project team for the “Material Acts” exhibition are Chiara Dognini, SCDC postdoctoral scholar; Alale Mohseni, architecture doctoral candidate; Greta Miller, School of Visual Arts alumna; and Keia Jones, graduate student in the College of Agricultural Sciences. This work was funded by the 2021 Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) Research Prize.

Work for the “Dreadlock Series” was funded by the Craft Contemporary Museum and Penn State College of Arts and Architecture's Research and Creative Activity Grant Program in Racial Justice, Anti-Discrimination, and Democratic Practices.

“Material Acts” is part of the Getty Pacific Standard Time cluster of exhibitions at arts institutions in California. More information about the exhibition, which runs until Jan. 5, can be found on the Craft Contemporary website.