Design Drinks + Talks 

With presentations by

Jay Atherton + Kristina Lee Podesva + Alan McConchie

Design Drinks + Talks takes place every other month at Localgroup Studio with short presentations by local designers, artists, architects, cartographers, programmers, writers, curators, and others engaged with and interested in design questions and problems. Presenters may share past work, explore design as a conceptual or practical concern, or pose a speculative question or idea. With each event, drinks and food will be served.

Bios

Jay Atherton produces work in art and architecture that explores the perceptual edges of the ordinary and is informed by the conditions of site in situ (i.e., weather, space, memory, absence, something, nothing, and so on). Jay received his M. Arch. from UC, Berkeley, where he has also taught in the Architecture department. He has worked for Studio Daniel Liebeskind, Berlin, Germany; Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, San Francisco, CA; and Will Bruder + Partners, Phoenix, AZ. And, his sculpture and installation work has appeared in exhibitions at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), Scottsdale, AZ; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Stanlee & Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, University of Texas, El Paso, TX; Suyama Space, Seattle, WA; and Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ. His house, Meadowbrook Residence, co-designed with Cy Keener, was featured in dwell magazine.

Alan McConchie is the founder of Localgroup Studio. Born and raised in Bellingham, Alan has recently relocated to his hometown and is currently Lead Cartographer at Stamen Design, a mapping and data visualization studio in San Francisco. Alan has worked using online map making, visualization, and data science for clients such as Audubon Society, National Geographic, Facebook, and Pinterest. He has taught for Stamen at the World Health Organization, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the California College of the Arts. He holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science & Mathematics, and a master's degree in Geography from UBC. His work with Stamen has been shown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and in the Istanbul Design Biennial.

Kristina Lee Podesva is Publisher and Editor of the newly formed bruna press + archive, an experimental, independent, artist-run publishing house and art library in Bellingham. Kristina was Editor of the art journal Fillip for ten years and has written in and edited books and texts in exhibition catalogues and art magazines. Her artwork has appeared at Artspeak (Vancouver), Darling Foundry (Montreal), Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver), No Soul for Sale at the Tate (London), Dorsky Gallery (Long Island City), the Power Plant (Toronto), and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), among other venues. She has taught at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Emily Carr University in Vancouver, and the Malmö Art Academy at Lund University in Malmö, Sweden.