Exhibit: WORK-IN-PROGRESS
Photo credit: Ada Tolla
For immediate release
WORK-IN-PROGRESS
MIT Architecture Keller Gallery, 77 Mass Ave, 7-408, Cambridge, MA
The exhibit will be on view starting November 8, 2024, with the opening reception at 6 PM on the same day.
Cambridge, MA, October 17, 2024 – WORK-IN-PROGRESS, an exhibition by LOT-EK, will be on view at MIT’s Keller Gallery through December 13, 2024. This intimate display unfolds their practice of reuse and upcycling of shipping containers and industrial objects as an interaction between research and practice, past and future.
The exhibition features an array of disparate objects across time and scale, from architecture models of projects built and dreamt, to a variety of items found or made. A set of videos focuses on the object ‘shipping container’ visualizing its presence on our planet, side by side with our recent art installation attempt to dismantle one. Shipping container data is also noted and drawn directly on the gallery walls, as WORK-IN-PROGRESS both celebrates and exposes the impact of the ubiquitous object.
About the Project
Conceived more as an active storage or archive rather than a finished exhibition, WORK-IN- PROGRESS transfers the physical work of the studio directly to the gallery space. Architecture models at different scale, mostly executed out of used cardboard boxes, light fixtures from upcycled containers, assembly parts and more are placed on an X-shape wood-plank-and-CMU structure, a free-standing display at the center of the Keller Gallery. In direct dialogue with these objects, a set of projections on the surrounding walls and floor activates the space with background information on both the design work and the research behind it. The projections, together with the wall graphics, visualize shipping container data about its invisible omnipresence on the planet, with alarm and humor.
About LOT-EK
LOT-EK is a team of architects, thinkers, and makers. We come together around our love for people, the objects we make, and the ones we dismiss. We focus on upcycling. We make sustainable, soulful architecture through the transformation of industrial infrastructural objects and systems. We work with the ordinary. LOT-EK’s projects range from installations with artists; through houses for families; through cultural projects for communities, institutions, and museums. Our practice has developed work from our hometown of New York around the world, from Queensland, Australia, through Huangshan, China to Johannesburg, South Africa. LOT-EK’s team is a tight knit group of designers—we each bring our voice, sensibility, and heritage to our common project. LOT-EK’s founding partners are Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano—we live and work in New York; grew up in Naples, Italy; have been practicing together since 1993; and teach at Columbia University GSAPP.
LOT-EK’s work has received awards and accolades—from the Emerging Voices from the Architecture League to The New York American Institute of Architects (AIA) Honor Awards, and it is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. LOT-EK’s second monograph, in collaboration with Thomas de Monchaux, is O+O: Objects + Operations, published by The Monacelli Press.
WORK-IN-PROGRESS was possible through funding from the MIT Department of Architecture. Project collaborators at LOT-EK are: Federico Primosa, Tala Salman, Hector Song, Virginie Stolz, Reza Zia. Keller Gallery Exhibition Team: Joél Carela, Christopher Dewart, Calvin Zhong. A special thank you to Ken McCormick for his AV support.
About the MIT Department of Architecture
The MIT Department of Architecture opened its doors in 1868 as the first Architecture department in the United States. MIT Architecture is currently home to around 250 graduate and undergraduate students. Numbered among the Department’s over 5,000 alumni are Sophia Hayden ’1890, Robert R. Taylor ‘1892, I.M. Pei ‘40, and Charles Correa ‘55.
About the Keller Gallery at MIT
The Keller Gallery was established in the fall of 2011 with a generous donation of materials and labor in kind from Shawn Keller, principal at C.W. Keller & Associates. The 200 square foot gallery presents faculty, student, and experimental work, including work from alumni and friends.
Visitor Information
The Keller Gallery at MIT
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building 7, Room 408, Cambridge, MA 02139
Free and open to the public
Monday through Saturday, 9AM to 6PM
Media contacts:
Joél Carela
Communications Strategist, MIT Department of Architecture
jcarela@mit.edu / 617-253-0692