As the College of Arts + Architecture begins a multi-year exploration of the complex relationship between the New South and the Global South, we welcome Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, to guide our understanding of the Global South.
Teddy Cruz (MDes Harvard University) is a Professor of Public Culture and Urbanism in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, and Director of Urban Research in the UCSD Center on Global Justice. He is known internationally for his urban research of the Tijuana/San Diego border, advancing border neighborhoods as sites of cultural production from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing, and public space. Recipient of the Rome Prize in Architecture in 1991, his honors the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award in 2011, the 2013 Architecture Award from the US Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2018 Vilcek Prize in Architecture.
Fonna Forman (PhD University of Chicago) is a Professor of Political Theory at the University of California, San Diego and Founding Director of the UCSD Center on Global Justice. Her work engages the intersection of ethics, public culture, urban policy and the city, with a focus on climate justice, border ethics and participatory urbanization. She serves as Co-Chair of the University of California’s Global Climate Leadership Council; and served until 2019 on the Global Citizenship Commission, advising United Nations policy on human rights in the 21st century.
Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman are principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a research-based political and architectural practice in San Diego investigating borders, informal urbanization, civic infrastructure and public culture. They lead variety of urban research agendas and civic / public interventions in the San Diego-Tijuana border region and beyond. From 2012-13 they served as special advisors on civic and urban initiatives for the City of San Diego and led the development of its Civic Innovation Lab. Together they lead the UCSD Community Stations, a network of public spaces across the border region co-developed between university and community for collaborative research and teaching on poverty and social equity. Their work has been funded by the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ArtPlace America, the PARC Foundation, and the Surdna Foundation, among others.
Their work has been exhibited widely in prestigious cultural venues across the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; M+ Hong Kong, the 2016 Shenzhen Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture, and representing the United States in the 2018 Venice Architectural Biennale. Their work is part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They have two new monographs: Spatializing Justice and Socializing Architecture: Top-Down / Bottom-Up (MIT Press and Hatje Cantz) and one forthcoming: Unwalling Citizenship (Verso).
This event is virtual. Please register to receive a Zoom link.