Mimi Zeiger

Critic, editor, curator and instigator.

You can hear the “bwak, bwak” of chickens as dusk falls on Camino Verde, an informal settlement that sprawls over the hillside of south Tijuana. Down the slope, a group of
men tinker with busted trucks. The neighborhood is home to 40,000 people. In a city that has become a hub of art and food culture in Mexico, Camino Verde is largely immune to any
revitalization and is still plagued by poverty, crime and drug use. I’m standing on the site of Transborder FarmLab, created by Torolab, an interdisciplinary art collective based in Tijuana. Among the discarded tires, piles of trash and loose dogs, people here are trying to make a life for themselves. The FarmLab lot used to be narco-gang turf. Now, it is home to a bunkerlike cultural facility and terraced soil awaiting plantings.

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Mextropoli, the First International Festival on Architecture and the City, organized by Arquine and directed by Andrea Griborio, takes place in Mexico City March 22-26, 2014.

Panel Discussion: Habla ciudad: la crítica
Iker Gil (Chicago), Andrés Jaque (Madrid), Ethel Baraona Pohl (Barcelona), Mimi Zeiger (Los Angeles)

Habla ciudad: la crítica
Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm
Location: Plaza de la Santa Veracruz

 

Different Kinds of Water Pouring Into a Swimming Pool, on view now at REDCAT through November 24, is the first solo project by Madrid-based architect Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation in Los Angeles. Jaque, who is currently a professor at GSAPP Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York, sidesteps conventional notions of architecture, preferring to make work that stirs up questions around community, consumption, and political engagement. His work, IKEA Disobedients, which was performed at MoMA PS1 in New York was recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA) as the first “architectural performance piece” in its collection. Read More …