(This event has been CANCELED due to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. It has been rescheduled for April 4, 2013.) Paola Antonelli is senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design and director of research and development at the Museum of Modern Art. Her first MOMA exhibition was Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design (1995). Her latest exhibition was 2011’s Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects. Antonelli earned the “Design Mind” Smithsonian Institution’s National Design Award and was named one of the twenty-five most incisive design visionaries by Time magazine. She has been a contributing editor for Domus magazine (1987-91) and an editor of Abitare (1992-94). Antonelli is also the author of many exhibition catalogues and the publication Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design (2005), which highlights how good design facilitates and enriches our daily life. Antonelli’s goal is to insistently promote design’s understanding, until its positive influence on the world is fully acknowledged and exploited. She is currently working on several shows on contemporary design; and on Design Bites, a book about foods from all over the world appreciated as examples of outstanding design.

With support from UM Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA).