Borderlines with Teddy Cruz & Philippe Ollé-Laprune

Acclaimed American architect and urbanist Teddy Cruz and French writer, documentarian, and cultural activist Philippe Ollé-Laprune discuss their groundbreaking work on the US/Mexico Border. Led by the Center on Global Justice, the Community Stations at the University of California form a network of sanctuary spaces in the migrant neighborhoods that flank the San Diego/Tijuana border. The FRONTeras Writing Residency was recently created to host migrant writers to co-produce collective literature projects with local community cohorts, university students, and researchers. The first writing residency involved a Nicaraguan writer exiled in Mexico, demonstrating what can be developed in collaboration with the ICORN framework.

About the Speakers:

Teddy Cruz (MDes GSD Harvard University) is a Professor of Public Culture and Spatial Practice in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California San Diego, where he is also Director of Cross-Border Urban Research in the Center on Global Justice. With Political Science Professor Fonna Forman, he leads the UC San Diego Community Stations, a cross-border network of public spaces located in migrant neighborhoods on both sides of the border wall. The network is designed and built for education and research in partnership with grassroots organizations. As an architect and urban researcher, he is known internationally for his work on the Tijuana-San Diego bioregion, a global laboratory for addressing the central challenges of urbanization today: deepening social and economic inequality, dramatic migratory shifts, urban informality, climate change, the thickening of border walls, and the decline of public thinking. He has received the Rome Prize in Architecture (1991), the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award (2012), and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture from the French National Museum of Architecture, in partnership with UNESCO (2014), among others. His work has been exhibited internationally, and he represented the United States in various Venice Architectural Biennials. Cruz and Forman just published a two-volume monograph with the MIT Press: Spatializing Justice: Building Blocks and Socializing Architecture: Top-Down / Bottom-Up, and an upcoming book with VERSO, Unwalling Citizenship: The Political Equator.

Philippe Ollé-Laprune has facilitated more than 30 years of cultural exchange between France and Latin America as a consultant, coordinator, producer, translator, compiler, and editor. He has been responsible for the Cultural Service of the French Embassy in Honduras. He was the founder and co-director of the Ad’Hoc Agency, a private cultural agency in France, where he organized the Marché de la Poésie and the colloquium “Latin Americans speak to Europeans” in Paris. Philippe also directed the Book Office of the French Embassy in Mexico from 1994–1998, during which time he published 85 books translated from French in 15 Mexican publishing houses. Philippe was the founding director of Casa Refugio Citlaltépetl and the magazine Líneas de Fuga (1999–2016). He hosted 13 exiled writers in Mexico City and organized some 600 literary and cultural events. Until 2023, he was the coordinator of University Extension at UAM Cuajimalpa. Philippe also plays a crucial role in ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network) in Latin America. He was the announcer of the radio program “Acentos” on Opus 94, which aired more than 940 episodes. He is the author and host of the documentary series “America!” for Channel 1 and the coordinator of the “Conversar de Literatura” series, broadcast on Channel 22.