People
SUPERFRONT STAFF
[all staff, as well as many freelancers and Board members, can be reached at firstname@superfront.org]
CHLOË BASS, Director of SUPERFRONT Detroit, is an artist and community organizer. She has received commissions from the Culture Project’s Women Center Stage Festival, the Bushwick Starr’s Bushwhack Festival, and 3rd Ward’s Moviehouse. Recent artistic work has been seen at SCOPE Art Fair (Us vs. Us), Fountain Miami (Grace Exhibition Space survey of Contemporary Visual Performance), Agape Enterprise (Tea Will Be Served), and the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas for the New City (Farm City) as well as throughout public spaces in New York City. She is a 2011 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Individual Artist Grant Nominee. Chloë is the co-lead organizer for Arts in Bushwick, which produces Bushwick Open Studios, BETA Spaces, and Armory Arts Week performance festival SITE Fest, which she founded. She has guest lectured at Parsons School of Design, Sotheby’s Institute, the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, and Brooklyn College CUNY. She holds a BA from Yale University, and an MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA) from Brooklyn College. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at Brooklyn College.
MITCH MCEWEN, Director and Founder, is Principal of A. Conglomerate, as well as a recipient of the The New York State Council on the Arts 2010 Independent Projects awards for Architecture, Planning and Design. The Akademie Schloss Solitude has granted her a residency fellowship in architecture for 2012-2013. Her architectural work has been published in Architectural Record and the New York Times, and her writing in African-American studies has been published in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society (IRAAS, Columbia University, 2007, 2009). Since founding SUPERFRONT in January 2008, she has curated more than fifteen exhibits and published 4 exhibition catalogues. In 2006, she was invited to join the adjunct faculty of Columbia GSAPP as Adjunct Assistant Professor to create a new cross-disciplinary course for urban planners and urban designers. She holds an M.Arch from Columbia GSAPP and A.B. from Harvard.
MARIEL VILLERE, Publications Intern for the Lab for Urban Futures series, focuses on citizen empowerment and the revitalization of post-industrial architecture and urban spaces through art and cultural activities. Professional experience at small design studios, non-profits, and museums situates her work between disciplines. She is currently a Masters Degree candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art and holds a BA in Architecture from Barnard College.
View SUPERFRONT LA staff
Photo by Shirelle T. White. Founder + Director Mitch McEwen (c) with founding Board Members Sarah Millsaps (l) and Nili Gilbert (r).
SUPERFRONT BOARD
MARK GARDNER, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP, Board Member and Business Development Chair, is a practicing Architect in Brooklyn, NY. He is a partner at Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects. Mark currently teaches as a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. He takes a serious interest in the nexus of architecture and art, a nexus of longstanding importance both to his professional practice and to his writings. Mark was a contributor to Johanna Saleh Dickson’s Pamphlet Architecture 23 Move/Sites of Trauma (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002) and co-author of Stephan Jaklitsch, Habits Patterns Algorithms (ORO, 2009). He is committed to practicing architecture as a socially beneficial art form. Mark is an Executive Committee Chair for NYCOBA, the New York Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA). Mark received his Masters of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania School Of Design and his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
ANNE GUINEY, Board Member and Secretary, is Executive Director of the Institute for Urban Design. Previously, Guiney was the editor of the New York edition of The Architect’s Newspaper, and was part of the original team that launched the newspaper in 2003. Prior, she was an editor at Architecture magazine and Metropolis, and has written widely on architecture and design for other publications, including Architect, MARK, ID, and Details. She has also worked as a consultant organizing high-profile architecture competitions (working with Jones | Kroloff), including the commissions for the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Parrish Art Museum, and the Portland Aerial Tramway.
JOHN HARTMANN, Board Member, is a founding partner of Freecell, a design and fabrication studio in Brooklyn, NY. Freecell’s work encompasses furniture, interiors, exhibitions, and art installations. The studio was named as an Emerging Voice in 2005 by The Architectural League of New York. John and his partner’s work has been on view at the Artists Space, the Henry Urbach Gallery, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Most recently, their project “LightHearted,” a participatory installation, was exhibited on Duffy Square in Times Square. John received his degree from The Cooper Union. He was a recipient of the Rome Prize in 2006 and a MacDowell Colony residency in 2010. He has taught at both the Rhode Island School of Design and New Jersey Institute of Technology.
NICOLE MCGLINN, LEED AP, Board Member and Program Committee Chair, is an architectural designer in the New York City office of Kohn Pedersen Fox. During her career, Nicole has worked in architecture firms in New Orleans, Chicago, and New York City, focusing on the design and construction of academic institutions. Nicole maintains active leadership role in the New York City community, attempting to utilize her design skills to encourage and promote social change. Recent outreach roles include serving as Project Manager for SUPERFRONT’s 2010 ‘Temporary Publics’ summer installation, and as Chair of the Urban Green Council/ Emerging Green Builders 2010 Green Jobs Expo. Nicole received her Masters of Architecture degree from Tulane University.
SARAH MILLSAPS TOWLES, Board Treasurer, is a practicing structural design engineer in new construction, renovation, adaptive reuse, and preservation with Robert Silman Associates. She is an active member of the Structural Engineers Association of New York City and NYCares. Sarah is a decorated combat veteran and holds her M.S.E./B.S.E. from Johns Hopkins University.
SUPERFRONT RESIDENCY
MANUEL AVILA, SUPERFRONT Brooklyn’s 2011 Architect-in-Residence, developed a nomadic research project entitled CROWN HEIGHTS PARTICIPATORY URBANISM. The project takes a landscape urbanism approach to rethink residual spaces adjacent to the Franklin Avenue shuttle train. Avila’s notion of Participatory Urbanism is founded on the idea of creating a common ground for residents, business owners, governmental entities and local community organizations to collaborate in the imagination of pluralistic public spaces. Manuel Avila is an urban designer and a resident of the the Crown Heights neighborhood since 2008.
PAWEL NIEDZWIECKI, Architect-in-Residence Fall 2009, uses his technical skills as a designer and craftsmen to produce large-scale artwork in mixed media. Exploring digital lazer cutting technology, as well as hand-crafted wood work, Pawel’s creative practice is grounded by his rigorous and beautiful hand-drawings. Most pieces begin as sketches. Themes include ornate patterning and detailed continuous lines, such that Pawel’s work often evokes tattoos or musical scores. As Projects Intern at SUPERFRONT in 2008, Pawel managed the construction process for large-scale exhibits and installations. Pawel holds a Bachelor of Fine and Applied Arts in Architecture, as well as a Masters of Architecture, both from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
FRANCISCA BENITEZ, Architect-in-Residence Fall 2009, has been a New York based artist since 1998. Her work investigates and comments on the ways individuals, groups and society inhabit space. She has no particular attachment to any medium, and chooses medium according to each specific project, including video, photography, drawing and performance. She graduated as an architect from the Universidad de Chile in 1998 and later studied art at Hunter College CUNY, where she completed her MFA in 2007. Her work has been exhibited in the Americas, Europe and Asia, most recently at the Instituto Cervantes in Beijing, China; Lokal.int in Biel-Bern, Switzerland; CCCB in Barcelona, Spain; Jersey City Museum in New Jersey, US; Itaú Cultural in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Smack Mellon and Exit Art in New York, US. She has been awarded an independent project grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, a Lambent fellowship from the TIDES foundation, and a FONDART grant from the Chilean Government.