Frank Escher, trained at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH, Zürich, Switzerland), is a principal with the Los Angeles firm Escher GuneWardena Architecture, whose work ranges from small, conceptually rigorous projects to ecologically and socially innovative urban design proposals. Frank Escher and partner Ravi GuneWardena’s interest in contemporary art has led to collaborations with artists, such as Sharon Lockhart, Mike Kelley, Olafur Eliasson, and Stephen Prina, and the installation design of dozens of exhibitions in American and European museums. Escher GuneWardena’s work on historic structures includes the restoration of John Lautner’s Chemosphere, Phase 1 restoration work of the Eames House (in collaboration with the Getty Conservation Institute), as well as houses by A.Q. Jones, Richard Neutra, Paul Williams, and Gregory Ain.
Escher is the editor of the monograph “John Lautner, Architect”, was the administrator for the John Lautner Archive (1995-2007), and serves on the boards of the John Lautner Foundation, the Julius Shulman Institute, and the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. Escher has taught at the University of Southern California, he and GuneWardena have been visiting professors at Cal Poly Pomona, at the University of Oregon, and at the Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland) for the 2016-2017 academic year, where they taught as part of the school’s Technique et Sauvegarde de l’Architecture Moderne (TSAM) program. In June of 2017, Clocks and Clouds, a monograph on Escher GuneWardena was released by Birkhäuser.
Tracy Lew is a partner at the iconic
James Corcoran Gallery in Los Angeles, California. For over 25 years, she has
collaborated with artists, private individuals, foundations, corporations,
estates and others to assemble some of the world’s more important collections
of contemporary art, with a particular emphasis on post-war Southern California
artists such as H.C. Westermann, James Turrell, Ed Ruscha and Ken Price. A
significant aspect of her work also involves working with curators, museums and
galleries on special commission projects, exhibitions, research, and
catalogues. She is a Member of Contemporary@LACMA acquisitions committee, Los
Angeles and the Chinati Contemporary Council in Marfa, Texas.
Jonathon Aubry is a media and entertainment executive with 20+ years of experience across digital media, film, music, television, branded entertainment and publishing. He has held senior positions in marketing, sales, publicity and business development in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors.
Presently,
Jonathon serves runs his own strategic consulting firm, AUBRY & CO. which
helps brands, media companies, digital platforms and non-profit organizations
build and grow their brand partnership, digital/luxury/influencer marketing and
branded content strategies. AUBRY & CO.’s current clients include The
Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, MRC Media which includes The
Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and Dick Clark Productions, Delta Air Lines,
XPrize, Fort LA, Sony Music Latin and Water’s End Productions.
Previously,
Jonathon served as Vice President, Brand Partnerships at The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, where he helped relaunch
The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard brands Before he joined THR and BB,
Jonathon served as Vice President, & Publisher, The Advocate Group at Here Media Inc.
where he was responsible for advertising sales and strategic partnerships
across the entire Advocate brand, including its print, digital, branded
entertainment and mobile platforms. Prior to Here Media, Jonathon served
as VP, Marketing and Distribution for Regent Releasing. While at Regent, he
oversaw theatrical and home entertainment marketing and publicity for all of
Regent Releasing’s independent theatrical releases. During Jonathon’s
tenure, Regent released over 35 films and garnered its first Oscar nomination
and win for Best Foreign Language film for DEPARTURES in 2009.
John
F. Szabo is the City Librarian of the Los Angeles Public Library, which serves
over four million people—the largest population of any public library in the
United States. He oversees the Central
Library, 72 branches and the Library’s $194 million budget. In 2015, the Library received the nation’s
highest honor for library service, the National Medal for Museum and Library
Service, for its success in meeting the needs of Angelenos and providing a
level of social, educational and cultural services unmatched by any other
public institution in the city.
Carolyn Ramo is the executive director of the non-profit arts organization Artadia. Since assuming the role in 2012, Ramo has helped the organization provide curator-driven grants and other impactful programs to visual artists in cities across the United States and outside of market centers. Before joining Artadia, Ramo was a partner at Taxter & Sepngemann, a contemporary art gallery that focused on emerging artist. Prior to that, she worked at David Zwirner and Nicole Klagsbrun and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Thao
Nguyen is an art/architecture/design agent and cultural strategist at leading
talent and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
CAA
represents many of the most successful professionals working in film, TV,
music, sports, theatre, video games, design, art, digital, and provides a range
of strategic offerings from marketing and consulting services, to venture
financing.
She
represents many of the world’s leading cultural innovators, including Bjarke
Ingels, Rem Koolhaas, Kahlil Joseph, Visionaire, Rob Pruitt, and Refik
Anadol. She has worked with brands such
as Burberry, Stella Artois, Samsung, Cadillac, and Absolut Vodka in creating
and amplifying their art and culture strategies.
Thao
also curates CAA’s contemporary art collection focused on Southern California
artists, is on the Board of UCLA School of Art & Architecture, and is a
founding member of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Fund for Exhibitions.
Elle Magazine named Thao on its Women in Hollywood Power List and profiled in VOGUE’s “Women of CAA.” Thao graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in Physiology and Art History.
Jaison Morgan is the CEO ofCommon Pool. He has been recognized by the BBC as “the world’s expert” in designing prizes to drive innovative breakthroughs. He helped establish a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study how targeted rewards can be used to induce new solutions to engineering challenges. He has served as an Advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of the First Minister of Scotland, and the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Sweden, the European Commission, and other public and private partners to counsel their use of competitions for solving large-scale problems.
Today, he leads the Common Pool team, an agency that focuses exclusively on creatively engineering incentive-based programs. Those programs include a competition to assist the NASA Mars Landing Mission, to open-source the development of new technologies to expand extra-terrestrial in situ resources aboard planetary facilities. Most recently, Common Pool has been responsible for the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change, offering a single $100 million grant (USD) that is the largest open-competition program ever launched. Jaison completed graduate studies at the University of Chicago. He is a frequent lecturer on the subject of incentive engineering and challenge competitions, and he is a serial entrepreneur who has spent his career on building companies that serve the public and leverage technologies to expand solutions to common causes. You are welcome to view his TEDx talk, to learn more about the history and some current trends when adopting these programs: https://youtu.be/NyOaoIcCeMY
After completing a degree in musicology at Carleton College (focusing on twentieth century experimental music), Shaun spent a year in Sri Lanka on a Fulbright fellowship studying the country’s ethnic conflict. He returned to Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami to investigate the uses of international aid money in reconstruction. He made his first documentary during that time, a short piece on the murder of a prominent Sri Lankan journalist. Since then, Shaun has produced and directed short documentaries and commercials around the world. BORN THIS WAY, his first feature-length documentary, premiered at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival and won the Outfest Los Angeles grand jury award for best documentary. Shaun lives in Los Angeles.
Christopher Hawthorne is an American journalist and television director who served as the architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2004 to 2018. In 2018, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed him as the city’s first Chief Design Officer.
In 2018, he directed the documentary That Far Corner for the KCET series Artbound about architect Frank Lloyd Wright‘s work in Los Angeles.[4] He also directed another Artbound episode titled Third Los Angeles.
