MARIAH NIELSON: MATERIAL LINEAGE, 2025 RONALD & ANITA WORNICK AWARD LECTURE

Please join us for this year’s Wornick Distinguished Visiting Artist Lecture, immediately following the Wornick Award Scholarship Exhibition + Event (details).

Mariah Nielson (b. 1978) is an architect, curator and design historian. As the daughter of the pioneering American artist JB Blunk, her holistic approach was influenced by growing up in the Blunk House, the home he built by hand with salvaged materials in Inverness, CA. She was a curator at the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, from 2009–2011 and director of the JB Blunk Residency from 2007–2011. She graduated with a BArch from CCAC in 2005 and in 2013, she completed an MA in Design History at the Royal College of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, under the direction of Glenn Adamson.

Mariah is currently the Director of the JB Blunk Estate, preserving and researching his practice, and Director of Blunk Space, an art and design gallery dedicated to expanding Blunk’s legacy by connecting his practice to that of contemporary artists all over the world. She is the editor of the first monograph about the artist, JB Blunk, which is now in its third edition. Recent curatorial projects include Design is a State of Mind, with Martino Gamper, Serpentine, London, 2015; Blue Jeans & Brown Clay: Artists and Designers at the Blunk House, Kate MacGarry, London, 2020; JB Blunk: Muse, Kasmin, New York, 2022; Three Landscapes: JB Blunk, Anna and Lawrence Halprin, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, 2022; and Same Blue as the Sky, with Studio AHEAD, 2023 and 2025.

Mariah and her work have been featured in publications such as The Financial Times, The New York Times, T Magazine, The Guardian, The World of Interiors, Architectural Digest, Cultured, Frieze, Apartamento and more. For three consecutive years (2023–2025), Mariah was named as one of the 400 people defining America’s creative landscape by Wallpaper* Magazine.

Location: Blattner Multipurpose Room