The China Shop 
Conversations between Artists and Scientists
Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, UC Davis
Thursday, May 30
4:30-6 PM PST

The China Shop is a two-year faculty-led initiative that brings artists to UC Davis to work with scientists in their labs. Playing off the idea of “a bull in a china shop,” the project facilitates two artist-scientist pairings each year, providing opportunities for interdisciplinary conversations, giving rise to imaginative possibilities, and catalyzing innovative outcomes. Each residency spans approximately ten weeks. In addition to the laboratory exchanges, the project hosts a moderated public presentation and discussion at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, where the participating artists and scientists engage with the audience, sharing insights into their collaboration, creative exchange and work-in-progress.

The 2023-2024 Artist-Scientist Pairings are Carrie Hott, a Bay Area artist, at the Center for Spaceflight Research (CSFR), directed by Stephen Robinson, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and director of the CSFR; and, Leire Asensio Villoria & David Mah, Australian architects, at the Post Lab with Professor Eric Post and Pernille Sporon Boving, scientists studying ecological consequences of climate change, with applications to wildlife conservation.

Hott is an interdisciplinary artist whose research based practice focuses on technological mediation and systems that are difficult to access, visualize, or understand. She creates multi-media installations that incorporate sound or video into sculptural settings. Her work also takes the form of small scale publications and performative lectures. Hott has presented her work as part of exhibitions and projects across the country, most recently at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Recology San Francisco, the Museum of Capitalism in Oakland, as well as a permanent project, The Key Room, at the Headlands Center for the Arts. She is the recipient of the Artadia Award, a Cultural Humanities grant, and has had residencies at UC Davis, Headlands Center for the Arts, Mills College in Oakland and Beta-Local in Puerto Rico, among others. She is currently on the board of the Headlands Center for the Arts. 

Villoria and Mah are educators and researchers in architecture as well as urban design at the University of Melbourne. They have been active in the production of creative works for the built environment as asensio_mah since 2002. Their works have been exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, the Tallinn Architectural Biennale, the Grand Metis International Garden Festival in Quebec, and the NGV Melbourne  Design Week amongst others. They have published their design research in the books: Systems Upgrade, and Lifestyled and Villoria has also published Architecture and Waste with Hanif Kara and Andreas Geourgoulias. 

This project is funded by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Art Works grant and directed by Professors Tim Hyde (Department of Art and Art History) and Jiayi Young (Department of Design). Engagement Fellow Cris Gomez (MFA Design UC Davis) and Project Assistant Tea Parker-Essig (BA Design UC Davis). The project is also supported by the Letters and Science Dean’s office, the UC Davis Office of Research, and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. The public talk part of the project is affiliated with the Leonardo Art, Science, Evening Rendezvous (LASER) in conjunction with the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology (ISAST), or Leonardo/ISAST LASER Talks.