An MIT-wide community drawing project inspired by Es Devlin, the 2025 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT recipient.
About the Project
MIT Face to Face is a collective event and pop-up exhibition inspired by Congregation, an art project and exhibition created by Es Devlin, the 2025 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts recipient.
The various silos in the MIT community can separate us and keep us from knowing one another. In MIT Face to Face sessions, strangers from all areas of MIT’s community were paired to draw one another and exchange their stories, creating a collective portrait of the Institute. In this project, drawing is used as a means to connect rather than an attempt to create a polished outcome; the marks on the page trace the encounter.
Drawings by workshop participants who opted to share their work are featured in a pop-up group exhibition in Thomas Tull Concert Hall in the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building during Es Devlin’s visit to campus April 28–May 1, 2025.
More info at artfinity.mit.edu
“We’re in a moment where we’re really having a hard time speaking to one another. We wanted to find a way to take the lessons from the work that Es Devlin has done to practice listening to one another and building connections within this very broad community that we call MIT.”
– Sara Brown, Associate Professor in Music and Theater Arts and MIT Face to Face Session Facilitator
“Drawing is a core human experience by which, we connect with ourselves in experience and communication of the world, and we connect with each other.”
– Seth Riskin, MIT Museum Studio Manager and MIT Face to Face Session Facilitator
About the McDermott Award
Established in 1974 by Margaret McDermott (1912–2018), the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT is bestowed upon individuals whose artistic trajectory and body of work have achieved the highest distinction in their field and indicate they will remain leaders for years to come. The McDermott Award reflects MIT’s commitment to risk-taking, problem solving, and connecting creative minds across disciplines.
Learn more about the McDermott Award.
About the Campus Residency
A distinctive feature of the McDermott Award is a campus residency, which includes a celebratory event at which the Award is presented, a public presentation of the artist’s work and significant interactions with students, faculty, and staff. The goal of the residency is to provide the recipient unparalleled access to the creative energy and cutting-edge research found in the MIT community, and to have the recipient connect with departments, laboratories, and research centers throughout the Institute in ways that will be mutually enlightening.
Learn more about Es Devlin’s residency.
About Es Devlin
Artist Es Devlin (born 1971, London, England) views an audience as a temporary society and often invites public participation in communal choral works. Her canvas ranges from public sculptures and installations at Tate Modern, V&A, Serpentine, Imperial War Museum and Lincoln Center to kinetic stage designs at the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera, as well as Olympic Games ceremonies, Super Bowl halftime shows, and monumental illuminated stage sculptures for large-scale stadium concerts.
Devlin is the subject of a major monographic book, An Atlas of Es Devlin, described by Thames & Hudson as their most intricate and sculptural publication to date,and a retrospective exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York.
In 2020, Devlin became the first female architect of the UK Pavilion at a World Expo, conceiving a building which used AI to co-author poetry with visitors on its 20 meter diameter facade. Her practice was the subject of the 2015 Netflix documentary series Abstract: The Art of Design. She is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and the University of the Arts London, and is a Royal Designer for Industry at the Royal Society of Arts. She has been awarded the London Design Medal, three Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, an Ivor Novello Award, doctorates from the University of Bristol and the University of Kent and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
More at Es Devlin’s website
Featured MIT Face to Face Participants
Aarushi Mehrotra
Abhinav Gandhi
Adam Boyles
Adriana Ramírez Cuebas
Adric Giles
Agathi
Agi Sardi
Alex Wood
Alexa Brown
Ali Cy
Allison Lin
Amanda Bligh
Anakha Ganesh
Anna Lian
Arezo Hakemy
Ariel McGee
Artemisia Luk
Arusha Nirvan
Bella Mazzucca
Caroline Albers
Caroline Chea
Casey Lawson
Cindy Bishop
Connor Kalvar
Danna Solomon
David Cohen-Tanugi
David Larson
Delaney Kerkhof
Dianne Cao
Elisa Xia
Ella Tubbs
Elsa Deshmukh
Emilio Ahuactzin-Garcia
Emily Garner
Emily Wang
Eugenia Kim
Farnaz
Felicia Xiao
Fiona Lu
Hailey Boriel
Hao zhu
Isaac Tardy
Jacob Payne
Jana Huisman
Jazhara Solan
Joey Dong
Johanna Gomez
Jonathan Duval
Jordan Walters
Julia Matthews
Julia Xia
Karen Guo
Katie McLean
Katrina Norman
Katya Latysheva
Katya Moniz
Kevin Lam
Lily Smith
Lrod Rodriguez
Marina Rakhilin
Matilda Swanson
Maya Detwiller
Mel St. Cyr
Mia Ladolcetta
Mia Liang
michelle escobar
Michelle Mo
Mishael Quraishi
Nhung Van
Nofit Segal
Olivia Joseph
Oriana
Oyin Adeyemi
Pancho Trujillo
Prince Patel
Rachael Kha
Sabrina Su
Sarah Dohadwala
Sarine Vosgueritchian
Saul Balcarcel-Salazar
Sergio Long
Siyang Liu
Sofie Chung
Sonia Boyles
Stephanie Hulme
Subin Kim
Susan Kim
Syd Robinson
Talia Gershon
Thelonious Cooper
Toya Takahashi
Verose Agbing
Vivian Guo
Whitney Zhang
Yael Vinker
Yichen Gao
Yichuan Shi
Yiner Xu
Yitian Zhu
Yosun Chang
Exhibition Credits
Design
Sloan Aulgur
Lighting Design
Perry Naseck
Faculty Guidance
Sara Brown
Ana Miljacki
McDermott Award Residency Working Group
Sloan Aulgur, Sara Brown, David Colfer, Leila W. Kinney, Ana Miljački, Perry Naseck, Isaac Tardy
Drawing Session Facilitators
Verose Agbing, Sarah Hirzel, Graham Jones, Sharon Lacey, Seth Riskin, Pancho Trujillo, Yael Vinker
Drawing Session Participants and Staff
Thelonious Cooper, Hailey Boriel, Stacy DeBartolo, Heidi Erickson, Michelle Escobar, Stephanie Irigoyen, Tim Lemp, Marisa McCarthy, Marla McLeod, Maggie Moore, Mariana Porros, Yiner Xu, Hannah Zahr, and the Office of the Arts.
Featured Music
- Charles Shadle’s Grace
- Keeril Makan’s Madrigal
- John Harbison’s Two Noble Kinsmen
- Miguel Zenón’s Summit
- Jamshied Sharifi’s To The Light, To The Flame
- Satoshi Yagisawa’s Divertimento
- Alexandre Glazounow’s Quartet for Saxophones
- André Lafosse’s Epithalame
- Paul Halley text by Wendell Berry, What Stood Will Stand
- Peter Godart, For Roger Payne
- Arr. F. Harris, with chorale by Jamshied Sharifi, In Praise of the Humpback Whale
- Chiquinha Gonzaga, arr. Evan Ziporyn, Corta Jaca
- Jamshied Sharifi’s Praeordinatus Ut Astra Sacrificia Nostra (Fore-Ordained As Stars Our Sacrifices)
Related Events
Climate and Care: A Conversation with Es Devlin
When
April 29, 2025 / 11:30am–1:00pm
Where
MIT Long Lounge (7-429)
What
A thought-provoking discussion on Es Devlin’s climate-focused installations will be moderated by Ana Miljački and explore the artistic and environmental impact of works such as Come Home Again (Tate Modern), Conference of the Trees (COP26), Forest for Change (The Global Goals Pavilion), and Forest of Us (Superblue).
What’s Happening in the World of AI?
When
April 30, 2025 / 5:00–6:30pm
Reception to follow from 6:30-7:30pm
Where
Tull Concert Hall, Edward and Joyce Linde Music building, W18
What
Hosted by Dugald C. Jackson Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, John Guttag, featuring brief presentations by leading experts in the field:
- Generative AI, Generative Art and the Library of Babel by Jacob Andreas, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
- Language as a Camera by Philip Isola, Class of 1948 Career Development Professor and Associate Professor, EECS
- Building Rational Robots by Leslie Kaelbling, Panasonic Professor, EECS
Following these presentations, there will be a conversation and Q&A with Es Devlin about her work at the intersection of AI and the arts, including her groundbreaking Poem Pavilion project exploring the fusion of technology and human expression.
Artist Talk: Es Devlin in Conversation with Paola Antonelli
When
Thursday, May 1, 2025 / 5-6:30pm
Where
MIT Huntington Hall 10-250
222 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
What
The 2025 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT Public Lecture exploring the expansive artistic practice of artist and designer Es Devlin in conversation with Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art.
Free and open to the public, but registration is required due to space limitations.