Yes And: Miller Prize Conversation with AD—WO

Join 2024-25 J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize Recipient Jen Wood and Emanuel Admassu of AD—WO in conversation with special guest Billie Tsien, who is the founding partner with Tod Williams of the New York City-based studio Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners. Hosted at Indiana University’s J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program, this conversation will be opened with a poetry reading by Indiana Author Award Honoree Manòn Voice.

A reception with Jen, Emauel, and Billie will take place at 6:30 pm, and the conversation will begin around 6:45 pm, with time for questions to follow. Ellipisis is one of the 13 installations in the 2025 Exhibit Columbus Exhibition, Yes And.

About Miller Prize Conversations

Landmark Columbus Foundation will host the Exhibit Columbus J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize Conversations in collaboration with Indiana University's J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program and Indiana Humanities.

Each conversation will begin with a reading from an Indiana poet. Then, the Miller Prize Recipient and a special guest will engage in a moderated open discussion about their previous work and practice, and how it relates to their Exhibit Columbus Installation as part of the 2025 exhibition Yes And.

Guests are invited to arrive early for a reception featuring the Miller Prize Recipient and a special guest.

About the J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize

The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize honors two great patrons of community, architecture, art, and design. J. Irwin Miller was a community leader in Columbus with a national reputation in business and activism. Irwin and his wife Xenia, helped bring twentieth-century architectural masterpieces to Columbus through public-private coalitions, today known as the “Columbus Way.”

Now in its 10th year, the Miller Prize brings architectural excellence fostered by the Millers into dialogue with the best of twenty-first-century art and design, making it relevant to new audiences. By collaborating with architects, artists, and designers, the Millers’ lifelong effort was to help make Columbus the best possible community of its size. Since 2016, Exhibit Columbus has recognized 19 studios with this distinction.

About the J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program at Indiana University

Artistic experimentation and architectural design flourish simultaneously at Indiana University’s NAAB-accredited J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program. Our unique curricular model is rooted in hands-on making and engages with the ecological, material, social, and theoretical context of contemporary practice. We are located in the heart of downtown Columbus, Indiana where an extensive architectural legacy is at our doorstep and serves as a living case study in design excellence. Students and faculty are vested in the city’s evolution through community partnerships, stakeholder engagement, and design-build initiatives. We also foster a global perspective through the Nomadic Studio, which provides funded opportunities to live and learn in culturally vibrant and active urban centers.

About the Indiana Authors Awards

The Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards honor the best books written by Indiana authors. Awarded every two years, they celebrate Indiana writers, shine a light on the Hoosier state’s literary community and deepen connections between Indiana writers and readers. They were established in 2009 as a vision of Eugene and Marilyn Glick and are a component of Indiana Humanities’ rich and diverse literary programming.

About Indiana Humanities

Indiana Humanities sparks curiosity, connects people, and explores the human experience through programs, grants, and storytelling. Learn more at www.IndianaHumanities.org.

AD—WO is an art and architecture practice founded by Jen Wood, a licensed architect in New York, and Emanuel Admassu, an assistant professor at Columbia University. The practice investigates the methods of spatial valuation undergirding the disciplines of architecture and urban design. AD—WO explores how these systems of measurement are entangled with discursive and material regimes of racialization, ecological degradation, and coloniality. The practice is committed to unsettling the conventions of architecture and aims to develop open and generous spatial practices while experimenting with tactics of opacity, occlusion, and abstraction, paying special attention to non-Western concepts and sites.

Billie Tsien is a New York-based architect, mentor, and leading voice in the design and broader cultural community. Her approach to architecture is rooted in the spirit of collaboration with a portfolio imbued with a sense of optimism, warmth, texture, and serenity. She is a founding partner of Studio Tsien with recent commissions including Ana Mari Cauce Welcome Center at the University of Washington and the New Humanities and Social Sciences Building at the University of New Mexico. She is also a founding partner of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects whose notable projects include the Asia Society Hong Kong, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, and the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park, Chicago. 

In parallel to her architecture practice, Billie teaches at Yale University and is a devoted participant in many arts organizations. She was appointed the first Woman and Asian-American Chair of the Commission of Fine Arts by President Biden in 2021. Billie previously held leadership positions at the Architectural League of New York, The Academy of Arts and Letters and the Public Art Fund.

This dedication to work and the cultural landscape at large has garnered her numerous awards including the National Medal of Arts from President Obama, the 2013 AIA Architecture Firm Award, and the 2019 Praemium Imperiale presented by the Japan Art Association. As an educator, arts advocate and practitioner, Billie is steadfast in her mission to create a better world through architecture.

Manòn Voice is a poet, spoken word artist, filmmaker, educator, and Hip-Hop emcee from Indianapolis, Indiana. Her work lives at the intersection of art and activism, centering community, justice, and cultural memory. She serves as Lecturer of Hip-Hop Music, History, and Culture at Butler University, where she also directs the IT WAS ALL A DREAM Hip Hop Ensemble. Her poetry has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and she has performed and taught widely across the country. Manòn is a Creative Renewal Fellow, an Emerging Stories Fellow, and a Farming Fellow Practitioner with Center for Humans and Nature.

Her films Where They Drag the Boats and ROOT BLACK, have received critical recognition, with the latter premiering at the 2024 Indy International Film Festival. She is committed to creating spaces where art fosters healing, liberation, and radical possibility.

Info: Enjoy light refreshments with Jen Wood, Emanuel Admassu, Billie Tsien, and Manòn Voice.

Info: Poetry reading by Manòn Voice, a moderated discussion with Jen Wood, Emanuel Admassu, and Billie Tsien, and time for community questions.

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