In Focus: Transformation

The World Around, the global platform for architecture and design, and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, announce a lineup of international and interdisciplinary visionaries for The World Around’s debut program on the West Coast.

In Focus: Transformation will take place Saturday, February 21, at the Hammer Museum, an art museum and cultural center in Los Angeles known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. The program is curated by Beatrice Galilee, founder and executive director of The World Around, and Béatrice Grenier, director of strategic projects and international programs at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

As landscapes are scorched, coastlines are eroded, and communities are displaced in a world warming as a result of human activity, the built environment becomes a critical site of response. In Focus: Transformation considers how designers, thinkers, and artists confront a world in fl ux—ecological, social, and political. Through a series of inspiring talks and conversations, the program will position design as a medium for positive change: a tool with which to respond to trauma, restore landscapes, resist extraction, and serve the vulnerable.

The program will bring together global visionaries in the expanded interdisciplinary fields of architecture and design, including landscape architects, researchers, fi lmmakers, worldbuilders, and artists whose work invites more equitable and sustainable ways of inhabiting the planet. In a time of compounding uncertainty, In Focus: Transformation will critically engage with the landscape of change facing designers today, and highlight those claiming agency within it. The program will also include an exclusive screening of the fi rst three episodes of Young Climate Stories, a documentary series spotlighting the vision and determination of rising climate leaders from The World Around’s Young Climate Prize, whose paths into climate action and self-initiated projects speak powerfully to the theme of transformation.

• David Barragán, Partner at Al Borde (Quito, Ecuador)

• Alice Bucknell, Artist, Writer, and Educator (Los Angeles, USA)

• Ximena Caminos, Cultural Placemaker and Founder of Reefline (Miami, USA)

• Teddy Cruz & Fonna Forman, Principals of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman (San Diego, USA)

• Walter Hood, Landscape Architect and Founder of Hood Design Studio (Oakland, USA)

• Sharon Johnston, Founding Partner of Johnston Marklee

• Michael Maltzan, Principal at Michael Maltzan Architecture

• Kotchakorn Voraakhom, Landscape Architect and Founder of Landprocess and Porous City Network (Bangkok, Thailand)

• Julia Watson, Designer, Educator, and Author (New York City, USA)

• Kulapat Yantrasast, Founding Partner, Managing Principal, and Creative Director of WHY Architecture (Los Angeles, USA)