Ellie Abrons and Mira Henry: Duel + Duet

Ellie Abrons and Mira Henry come together to discuss work produced in two consecutive exhibitions, collaboratively supported by the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) and SCI-Arc. Ellie Abrons’ exhibition, Inside Things, was on view at SCI-Arc from March 18-May 1. Abrons’ work explores architectural interiority born from agglomeration and loose associations between inside and out. The View Inside Things, by Mira Henry, is currently on display at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). Henry's installation considers the literality and abstraction of site through a series of material translations. In their conversation, the two designers reflect on mutual themes and productive distinctions in their recent work.

Ellie Abrons is an architectural designer and educator and the principal of EADO. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where she was the A. Alfred Taubman Fellow in 2009 – 2010. Her work focuses on material experimentation and reuse, digital fabrication, and explorations of formal allusion. Ellie received her Masters of Architecture from the University of California Los Angeles, where she graduated with distinction, and her BA in art history and gender studies from New York University. Ellie is the recipient of a residency fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany and her work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Storefront for Art and Architecture, A+D Gallery, and the Architectural Association. An exhibition of Ellie’s work, entitled Inside Things, was recently shown at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles and she is a contributor (as part of T+E+A+M) to the US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Mira Henry is a designer and an educator. She holds a Bachelors in Art History from the University of Chicago and an Master's of Architecture from UCLA. She is the recipient of the Henry Adams AIA Award and Archiprix International Gold Medal for her Master's research project “Urban Upholstery”. She is faculty at Southern California Institute for Architecture (SCI-Arc). Prior to teaching she worked as a lead designer and project manager for Office dA and Monica Ponce de Leon Studio in New York. Mira is principal of Henry Architecture (HA), an office based in Los Angeles committed to the double interest in text and effect, in the conceptual and the material, and in the status of the architect as cultural producer and service provider.