Fonna Forman is Associate Professor of Political Theory and the founding director of the Center on Global Justice at the University of California, San Diego, as well as one of the principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman. A theorist of ethics and public culture, her work focuses on human rights, climate justice, border ethics, and equitable urbanization. Dr. Forman is known internationally for her revisionist research on Adam Smith, recuperating the ethical, social, spatial, and public dimensions of his thought.
Event Overview
In the sixth session of Cornell’s Reimagining Citizenship speaker series, Teddy Cruz (Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego) and Fonna Forman (Political Science, University of California, San Diego) will discuss their work on “citizenship culture" at the U.S.-Mexico border and the network of civic spaces they have co-developed with border communities to cultivate regional and global solidarities.
Merging the fields of architecture and urbanism, political theory and urban policy, and visual arts and public culture, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman is a research-based architectural practice that investigates issues of borders, informal urbanization, civic infrastructure, and public culture, with a special emphasis on Latin American cities. Their work has been exhibited widely in cultural venues across the world, including the Museum of Modern Art; San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum; Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt; and M+ Hong Kong. Dr. Cruz and Dr. Forman, who represented the United States in the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, also have two monographs forthcoming: “Top-Down/Bottom-Up: The Research and Practice of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman” and “The Political Equator: Unwalling Citizenship.”
The series “Reimagining Citizenship” features scholars, writers, and artists whose work interrogates the limits and possibilities of legal, social, and cultural belonging. Through book talks, roundtables, and presentations, we consider how multidisciplinary, multispecies approaches to the study of migration open up new understandings of citizenship, borders, and social transformation. Organized through Cornell University’s Migrations Global Grand Challenge.
What You'll Learn
- How the borderlands offer ways to re-envision citizenship
- How borders function not only as sites of exclusion but as spaces of global solidarity
- The significance of recognizing borderlands as sites of cultural production and political movement
- How work in visual art and political theory resonates across borderlands in Tijuana/San Diego and Gaza
Speakers
Jessica Levin Martinez is the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. She is a leading advocate for museum-based interdisciplinary teaching with global collections. Prior to joining Cornell in 2019, Dr. Martinez directed academic and public programs at Harvard Art Museums and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. She has taught museum practice and art history at George Washington University, University of Chicago, and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Her exhibition “Clay—Modeling African Design,” co-curated with Suzanne Preston Blier, is at Harvard Art Museums through 2022. Dr. Martinez has investigated Nazi-looted artworks in Prague, Czech Republic and Bratislava, Slovakia, and holds a Ph.D. in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University.
Patchen Markell teaches political theory at Cornell University. He is currently finishing a book about Hannah Arendt’s political thought called “Politics Against Rule: Hannah Arendt and the Human Condition.” Recent publications have appeared in OASE Journal of Architecture, Modern Intellectual History, and Theory & Event.
Teddy Cruz is Professor of Public Culture and Urbanism in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman. He is known internationally for his urban research of the Tijuana/San Diego border and advancing border neighborhoods as sites of cultural production from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing, and public space.
Fonna Forman is Associate Professor of Political Theory and the founding director of the Center on Global Justice at the University of California, San Diego, as well as one of the principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman. A theorist of ethics and public culture, her work focuses on human rights, climate justice, border ethics, and equitable urbanization. Dr. Forman is known internationally for her revisionist research on Adam Smith, recuperating the ethical, social, spatial, and public dimensions of his thought.
Jessica Levin Martinez is the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. She is a leading advocate for museum-based interdisciplinary teaching with global collections. Prior to joining Cornell in 2019, Dr. Martinez directed academic and public programs at Harvard Art Museums and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. She has taught museum practice and art history at George Washington University, University of Chicago, and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Her exhibition “Clay—Modeling African Design,” co-curated with Suzanne Preston Blier, is at Harvard Art Museums through 2022. Dr. Martinez has investigated Nazi-looted artworks in Prague, Czech Republic and Bratislava, Slovakia, and holds a Ph.D. in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University.
Patchen Markell teaches political theory at Cornell University. He is currently finishing a book about Hannah Arendt’s political thought called “Politics Against Rule: Hannah Arendt and the Human Condition.” Recent publications have appeared in OASE Journal of Architecture, Modern Intellectual History, and Theory & Event.
Teddy Cruz is Professor of Public Culture and Urbanism in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman. He is known internationally for his urban research of the Tijuana/San Diego border and advancing border neighborhoods as sites of cultural production from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing, and public space.
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