Elsa MH Mäki is a designer who works in living environments. Her work is sculpture, cartography, immersive theater, and architectural design. Her writing and drawing have been featured in the Avery Review, the Funambulist, and scattered volumes including Non-Extractive Architecture. She received degrees in architecture at Columbia University – where she received the Marcia Mead Design Award – and Harvard GSD. Elsa is an editor with Avery Review and has held design positions in Massachusetts, New York, and Minnesota. Her forthcoming chapter “Propping Up the Cloud” will appear in Architectures of Care: From the Intimate to the Common, and her architectural sculpture was recently on view with Gerard & Kelly’s retrospective Ruines at the Carré d’Art in Nîmes, and as Post-Mortem: Queer Material Afterlives at Kirkland Gallery in Cambridge. She joined JSA/MIXdesign in 2023 and is now based in New York.
exhibitions
2023
2022-2023
2019
2018-2022
“Post-Mortem: Queer Material Afterlives” with Aggie Fielding, Areti Kotsoni, Cory Page. Cambridge, MA. Kirkland Gallery Artist Residency (inaugural year). On view April 2023.
“Ten Thousand Recollections” architectural sculpture commissioned for Ruines retrospective by artists Gerard & Kelly. Nîmes, France. Carré d’Art. On view October 2022-March 2023.
“The Night Library” at Northern Spark Arts Festival. Minneapolis, MN. With Marlena Myles, Tamara Aupaumut, Dawí, James D. Autio, Jess Grams, Andrea Fairbanks, Hope Flanagan. On view June 2019.
“#Roadside Marker Series,” an interview with Dr. Alyssa Mt. Pleasant on her long-term photography project, featured in traveling exhibition Now What?! Advocacy, Activism, and Alliances in American Architecture Since 1968.
speaking
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
In conversation with Sara Zewde for inaugural Norma Merrick Sklarek lecture at Barnard-Columbia Architecture, New York.
Guest lecture for Ana María León’s seminar “The Architect as Producer” at Harvard GSD, Cambridge.
In conversation with Andrew Holder on exhibition and dance event series “Art of a Movement: Disability, Dance, and Dynamism in Artistic Practice” at Harvard Dance Center, Cambridge.
Guest lecture for Seb Choe’s seminar “Noncompliance: Activist Design Approaches” at Kent State College of Architecture and Environmental Design.
Guest critic for final review: “Storybuilding: Inclusive Design and Public Health,” taught by Joel Sanders and Neal Baer, Yale SoA/Yale Public Health, New Haven.
Guest critic for final review: “Architecture’s Global Territories” taught by Ignacio G. Galán, Barnard-Columbia Architecture, New York.
Guest critic for review: “Conscious Skins Studio” taught by Abeer Seikaly and Gabrielle Prinz, Yale SoA, New Haven.
Guest lecture for Virginia Black’s “Design Futures” seminar at Barnard-Columbia Architecture, New York.
“Building Solidarities: Building Historical Consciousness” roundtable with Nick Estes, Chris Cornelius, Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi at Barnard-Columbia Architecture, New York. Featured on the Red Nation Podcast.
“The Petro-Biennial Complex” roundtable at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, convened by the Settler Colonial City Project.
Presenting with Virginia Black at the Interiors without Architecture Symposium, Pratt Institute, New York.
“Under the Border” mapping workshop at the Abolition Convergence, Minneapolis, MN.