Creativity transcends conventional boundaries by forging unexpected connections and revealing hidden patterns. But where does creativity originate, and how can it be cultivated? Can we direct its flow—or must we follow where it leads? Might blurring boundaries between disciplines open new dialogues and foster cross-pollination?
Join us for this year’s Creatives in Conversation, as we explore these questions through the work of three visionary artists: Refik Anadol, Lita Albuquerque, and Lucy McRae. Spanning AI, digital art, sculpture, multi-media performance, and conceptual fashion, their practices challenge our thinking and invite new perspectives.
The conversation will be moderated by Los Angeles–based architect and critic Joe Day, and held at the iconic Schindler House, in collaboration with the American Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles.
Together, we’ll explore what might evolve when disciplines converge and boundaries blur.
Students: $25
AIA and MAK Center Members: $55
General: $70
Lita Albuquerque
Since the early 1970s, Lita Albuquerque (born 1946, Santa Monica, CA, raised in Carthage, Tunisia and Paris, France) has created an expansive body of work, ranging from sculpture, poetry, painting and multi-media performance to ambitious site-specific ephemeral projects in remote locations around the globe. Often associated with the Light and Space and Land Art movements, Albuquerque has developed a unique visual and conceptual vocabulary using the earth, color, the body, motion and time to illuminate identity as part of the universal.
She represented the United States at the Sixth International Cairo Biennale, where she was awarded the Biennale’s top prize. Albuquerque has also been the recipient of the National Science Foundation Artist Grant Program for the artwork, Stellar Axis: Antarctica, which culminated in the first and largest ephemeral artwork created on that continent. She has an upcoming solo exhibition slotted for 2026 at the Palm Springs Museum of Art. Recent major exhibitions include Lita Albuquerque: Earth Skin, Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles; Lita Albuquerque: The Washington Monument Project: The Red Pyramid, presented by Galerie La Patinoire Royale Bach, Offscreen, Paris; Lita Albuquerque: Malibu Line, Los Angeles Nomadic Division; Crossing Over: Caltech and Visual Culture, 1920 – 2020, California Institute of Technology, Getty PST, Pasadena, CA; Lita Albuquerque: Early Works at Galerie La Patinoire Royale Bach, Brussels; Groundswell: Women of Land Art at Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; Lita Albuquerque: Liquid Light presented by bardoLA at 59th La Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Arte 2022; Light & Space at Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark; Desert X AlUla 2020, Saudi Arabia; the 2018 Art Safiental Biennial, Switzerland. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Trust, the Whitney Museum of American Art, LACMA and MOCA, among others.
Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the Director and co-founder of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and teaches at UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts from which he obtained a Master of Fine Arts. Refik Anadol Studio brings together a globally diverse team of designers, architects, data scientists, and researchers—originating from 10 countries and fluent in 15 languages—who share a deep commitment to inclusion, equity, and cross-cultural collaboration at every stage of artistic production. Anadol is also the co-founder of Dataland, the world’s first Museum of AI Arts. Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Taking the data that surrounds us as primary material, and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol offers us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expands the possibilities of interdisciplinary arts. Anadol’s AI data paintings and sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, public art, decentralized networks, and the creative potential of machines. Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Guggenheim Bilbao, Serpentine Galleries, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Casa Batlló, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Daejeon Museum of Art, and Istanbul Modern. Anadol has received a number of awards and prizes including TIME 100 AI Impact Award, UCLA’s 2024 Edward A. Dickinson Alumnus of the Year Award, the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, iF Gold Award, D&AD Pencil Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts Award, and SEGD Global Design Award.
Lucy McRae leads an art-research studio in Los Angeles investigating how emerging technologies impact human evolution. Her artisanal approach to technology brings science to street level— creating imaginary worlds, in sculpture, film and conceptual fashion, exploring who we are, and where we are headed. In parallel to her gallery and museum-focused art practice Lucy thrives as a strategic and versatile thought partner to brands, Institutes, and Hollywood Writers’ rooms, including Blade Runner 2099. Renowned for her agility and exceptional capacity to connect far-reaching dots, Lucy brings a multiplayer mindset to thought experiments and design led innovation, drawing from her experience leading the far-future research division at Dutch multinational Philips (2006-10) developing wearable technologies with emotional sensing capabilities. Among the leading voices examining how technology shapes culture, Lucy has presented at London Royal Society, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Tribeca, Royal Albert Hall, MIT, TED, Creator’s Project, Cannes Lion and Dezeen. Lucy uses worldbuilding and speculative design to run masterclasses for brands, leaders and young creators, helping prototype ambitious goals that seem daunting but have the potential to transform their lives, and the lives of others.
Her work has been exhibited around the globe at SFMOMA, Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou, Science Museum London, Milan Triennale, National Gallery Victoria, Powerhouse Museum, MAXXI, NXT Museum, and Honor Fraser Gallery. Collaborations and commissions include NASA, Aesop, Adidas, Intel, Kia, Dezeen, Unilever, Wired, Ars Electronica, and BMW Mini. Keynotes at TED, Royal Albert Hall, Cannes Lion, Royal Society, and Tribeca Film Festival.
A Visiting Professor at SCI-Arc, co-directing a futures incubator, Lucy is a World Economic Forum, Young Global Leader and TED Fellow.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, LOS ANGELES
AIA|LA (American Institute of Architects Los Angeles) is one of the largest and most vibrant chapters of the AIA, representing over 2,000 architect members within a wider community of approximately 4,300 design professionals. Committed to elevating architectural design across Southern California, AIA|LA serves as both a resource and advocate for its members. Driven by the belief that good design not only shelters us, but improves well‑being and enriches civic life, the chapter advances its mission through professional development, advocacy, community engagement, and design excellence initiatives—empowering individuals, strengthening firms, and uplifting LA’s built environment.
MAK CENTER FOR ART AND ARCHITECTURE
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles is a contemporary, experimental, multi-disciplinary center for art and architecture and is headquartered in three architectural landmarks by the Austrian-American architect Rudolph M. Schindler. Founded in 1994, the MAK Center is a Los Angeles-based 501(c)3 non-profit organization and the California satellite of the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. The core of the programming includes the internationally recognized MAK Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program, an annual residency program for emerging international artists and architects. The MAK Center works in cooperation with the Friends of the Schindler House (FoSH), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve and maintain Schindler's Kings Road house in West Hollywood.