Material Intelligence magazine, published by the Chipstone Foundation, celebrates the human capacity to understand and shape the physical world around us. Inspired by the magazine’s exploration of individual commonplace materials, this exhibition foregrounds two key substances–linen and glass–and invites visitors to experiment with many more. Threads explores the metaphorical vibrancy of linen and other fibers through the work of Ann Coddington. Spheres of Influence reveals how the material possibilities of glass and the embodied skills of glassmakers have shaped intellectual life at UW-Madison. Taken together, these installations reveal the Material Intelligence that connects makers and materials across time and media. The Work in Progress Lab in the rear of the gallery invites visitors to explore these material relationships and others for themselves.

This exhibition is supported by the Anonymous Fund, the Chipstone Foundation, the Marilynn R. Baxter Fund, the University of Wisconsin – Madison Division of the Arts Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts, University of Wisconsin – Madison School of Education Impact 2030 Helen Burish Fund, and the University of Wisconsin – Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

This exhibition was on view in the Ruth Davis Design Gallery from October 16, 2024-March 9, 2025.

Spheres of Influence: Glass Across UW

A glass scientific laboratory device (called a Kaliapparat) is suspended from the top with a black background.

The power of shaping glass has played a critical role in the history of UW–Madison. Glass has enabled us to see near, far, into, and beyond. Spheres of Influence: Glass Across UW foregrounds the material intelligence of this unique state of matter. This exhibition celebrates the embodied skills of glassmakers who make possible the imaginations of researchers across the arts and sciences, playing an instrumental role in UW’s history of innovation.

Threads: Natural Fiber and Living Lines

Ann B. Coddington works in threads—living lines created by natural fibers. This material invites layered metaphorical possibilities that are not bound by a loom or a specific interpretative category. Her iterative process invites a range of creative approaches to these materials that stretch across millennia and invite reflection on intimate and immense themes—as individuals, as a society, and as part of a changing planet.

Work in Progress (WIP) Lab

Image of textile lettering that read "WIP LAB"

The Work in Progress Lab in the rear of the Ruth Davis Design Gallery invites visitors to engage with materials and techniques on display in the CDMC. Feel the materials and learn techniques that transform them into the objects that have shaped and continue to shape our everyday lives. Develop and share your own material intelligence by felting with wool, weaving with linen, constructing with glass, and connecting with others through material processes. We offer instructions and supplies to get started on projects like weaving, basketry, crochet, embroidery, visible mending, felting, and much more!

Keep an eye out for WIP Lab Activations where CDMC staff and featured makers will lead guided workshops using the materials and techniques on display.

In the News:

A beige exhibition case displays a collection of glass kaliapparat

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Neon Walking Tour

Madison is no Vegas, but this is exactly the point. Every urban landscape across the world has been touched by the visual language of neon signage. It can be baffling to grasp the reality by which every neon sign ever made in history—has been made by hand. Madison’s unique neon history includes the founding of the UW Neon Lab in 1987 in the UW-Madison Art Department. Here, students learn the hand skills of bending glass tubing into a pattern, filling it with a noble gas (such as neon or argon), and electrifying it to create luminous neon light. Artists trained in neon contribute to the broader landscape and history of neon in Madison, from industrial signage to contemporary fine art. The Glass Madison Neon Walking tour shares a curated selection of neon spanning typographic, iconographic, and illustrative uses of the medium to bring an appreciation for this craft to the Madison public.

Navigate the Glass Madison Neon Walking Tour directly on Google Maps.

Hair Symposium

No material is more intimate, immediate, or incendiary than human hair. Materially speaking it is fairly simple: strands of dead cells anchored in living follicles, the lengths composed mainly of keratin protein, the same stuff that’s in fingernails and feathers. We all have hair sprouting all over us, in varied quantity, quality, color, and disposition. In these happenstance details, and in the ways that we manage this ever-growing resource of our bodies, lie untold personal hopes and vanities, cultural affinities and conflicts.

At this annual symposium, hosted on April 25, 2025, was co-organized by Center for Design and Material Culture at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Material Intelligence magazine, and the Chipstone Foundation, a group of scholars and artists convened to consider the deep matter of human hair. A particular emphasis on narratives from Asia (Japan, China and India) and the African diaspora explored braided histories of skill and identity. The event concluded with a panel on artistic practice, showing the many ways that hair is used as a creative medium.

Speakers and panelists included:
Elizabeth Block
Vaishnavi Patil
Yuhang Li
Sarah Mesle
Rachael Schwabe
Faisal Abdu’Allah
Melanie Bilenker
Sanne Visser
Shani Crowe
Indira Allegra

Material Intelligence is a digital magazine that celebrates the human capacity to understand and shape the physical world around us. Each issue dives deep into one commonplace material, with contributors who come from every discipline and walk of life. Together the stories they tell illuminate vital, at times unexpected connections: between art and science, history and contemporary life, the tangible and the intangible. Material Intelligence is published by the Chipstone Foundation.

Annually, Material Intelligence partners with a public-facing institution to convene a cross-disciplinary gathering of specialists with an interest in materiality. Typically these proceedings form the basis of a quarterly edition of the magazine. Past symposia have included events on Obsidian, co-organized with the Center for Art Research, University of Oregon (2022); “Animal Vegetable Mineral,” with the School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2023); and on Steel, with the University of Birmingham, UK (2024).

The goals of these events are threefold: to stage dynamic conversations across subject areas; to elevate visibility for excellent work being done on materiality; and to raise visibility for the Material Intelligence initiative itself.