Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood (AD-WO) visit Ohio State
Jen Wood and Emanuel Admassu, founders of the New York-based art and architecture firm AD-WO, visited Ohio State during spring semester as part of the Office of Academic Affairs’ Visiting Artist Program.
Architects Wood and Admassu conducted a series of three workshops with faculty and students from the Department of Design and the Knowlton School of Architecture during spring semester 2025. All three workshops were intended to explore the question of how an image of a site might be used to genuinely explore notions of repair, animation, and placemaking. Participants combined samples, sites, and objects to produce 30" x 30" tapestries that emphasized the spatial implications of their weavings. For the purposes of these particular workshops, samples were understood as counter-cartographic representational techniques—borrowed from contemporary visual art practices—with the capacity to unsettle the logics of satellite imagery. Sites were understood as representational fragments of Columbus, Ohio; and objects were found materials from those sites that did or would not show up on maps or satellite images.
