[WELCOME TO THE USA]: Architecture and Human Rights at the Border
A Conversation with Teddy Cruz and Thomas Keenan

Thursday, July 30, 2009
6:30–8:30pm
at Van Alen Institute

Van Alen Institute, in collaboration with the Human Rights Project at Bard College, presents a conversation between Teddy Cruz and Thomas Keenan on architecture, human rights, and spatial conditions at the U.S. border.

Every year sixty million people carrying untold amounts of goods and services cross the international border between the United States and Mexico at the San Diego-Tijuana checkpoint—the most heavily trafficked border crossing in the world. Recently the U.S. government through the Department of Homeland Security has poured billions of dollars into this region in an effort to reinforce its surveillance infrastructure. At the same time, the "off the radar" flow of people and goods has persisted, heightening political tensions. At no other juncture in the world is it possible to find such an intense juxtaposition of wealth and poverty, cultural similarity and difference, and formal and informal types of urbanism. San Diego-based Teddy Cruz has been among the most outspoken architects and activists to focus attention on this ongoing crisis. His conversation with cultural theorist and human-rights scholar Thomas Keenan is presented in conjunction with Van Alen Institute's current exhibition "The Aesthetics of Crossing," featuring two stations on the U.S.-Canada border recently completed by Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects with Alan Michelson; and "Citizenship by Design," a project by Kadambari Baxi and Irene Cheng. The exhibition is on view through this Friday, July 31, 2009.

This event is free and open to the public; please RSVP to rsvp@vanalen.org by 12:00pm on Thursday, July 30.