Join Mark Allen and Jen Smith as we explore DIY culture in Los Angeles along with other special guests.  Mark Allen will be speaking about the basics of starting your own (art/music/literature/whatever) space using Machine Project as an example.  Jen Smith will lead a pickling workshop where you can create your own pickled sensations.

Mark Allen is an artist, educator and curator located in Los Angeles. He is the founder and director of Machine Project (www.machineproject.com), a non-profit performance/installation space investigating art, technology, natural history, science and poetry.

Jen Smith is an artist and musician. With her post punk band the Quails, she has played music halls, street protests and squats, made posters, zines and anti-war ephemera and recorded three albums. She grew up eating industrial food. When she was a teenager, she endeavored to make a homemade pie, something she could not remember ever having eaten before. A month later, she swept the local county fair with her peach pie! She has been curious about food, how it is grown, the politics of its production and how it is prepared and eaten ever since. She has been making sauerkraut for many years and starting pickling in the summer of 2009 in homage to her recently deceased grandmother. She received her BA in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park and her MFA from the University of California, Irvine.