Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian in Conversation

ArtCenter is proud to welcome multidisciplinary designer and cultural activist Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, PhD (she/they) as part of the Toyota Endowed Speaker Series 2025.

Thinking in Action: An Open Conversation on Radical Imagination and Experimental Practices with Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, Ahmanson Auditorium, 6:30pm, free and open to the public.

In this open conversation, Nelly will share the behind-the-scenes of how her work came into being- from graduation experiments to collaborations with NASA, the United Nations, and brands and labels like BMW, IKEA, WeTransfer, LEGO, Red Bull, XL Recordings, Porsche, and NIKE. She will reflect on the complexities of challenging the status quo, rethinking working practices, and sustaining an experimental practice with accessibility as a core ethos, while exploring how plurality, queer thinking, and collective public events can ignite unexpected futures into the world.

Hayoun-Stépanian is an award-winning designer, filmmaker, and cultural activist whose practice spans 15 years of building radical creative projects and impossible productions at the intersection of outer-space exploration, music, film, nightlife, technology and social change. Founder of the International Space Orchestra, an ensemble of NASA scientists and astronauts, and the tuition-free University of the Underground that build platforms to amplify freedom of thought and cultural accessibility. Hayoun-Stépanian’s projects have premiered at MoMA, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and they’ve collaborated with NASA, the U.N., and artists like Kid Cudi and Massive Attack.

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