I’m an anthropologist and curator of design based in Los Angeles. I received my PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine and am currently Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at ArtCenter College of Design and Adjunct Curator of Architecture + Design at the Palm Springs Art Museum.
My work is concerned with understanding design as a culturally situated and socially consequential process and draws on methods and theories from anthropology, science and technology studies, and the histories of design, art, and science. Centered in Mexico and California and manifesting primarily through writing and curation, my projects examine design/technology intersections; countercultural and everyday design; and the relation of indigeneity to modern aesthetic and knowledge practices. My writing has been published in 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual, Representations, Design Observer Quarterly, the Getty Research Journal, Curator: The Museum Journal, and other publications and I’m author of two books, Prospects Beyond Futures: Counterculture White Meets Red Power (Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2020) and Learning by Doing at the Farm: Craft, Science, and Counterculture in Modern California (with Anna Kryczka, Soberscove Press, 2014). Recent exhibition projects include Eso es la Vida/This is Life: Graphic Design from Mexico (Palm Springs Art Museum, 2023), Everyday or Not at All (ArtCenter, 2022), Fabien Cappello: Sillas Callejeras/Street Chairs (UC Berkeley), Designed in California (SFMOMA, 2018) and MEXICO 68: Design and Dissent (SFMOMA, 2018).
At ArtCenter, I teach courses in design anthropology, science and technology studies, and material culture and curatorial studies. I previously taught at UC Berkeley and the California College of the Arts and held positions in SFMOMA’s Department of Architecture + Design, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science’s Artefacts, Actions and Knowledge initiative, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the Getty Research Institute. My work has received support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, UC MEXUS, the UC Institute for Research in the Arts, and other institutions.
My work is concerned with understanding design as a culturally situated and socially consequential process and draws on methods and theories from anthropology, science and technology studies, and the histories of design, art, and science. Centered in Mexico and California and manifesting primarily through writing and curation, my projects examine design/technology intersections; countercultural and everyday design; and the relation of indigeneity to modern aesthetic and knowledge practices. My writing has been published in 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual, Representations, Design Observer Quarterly, the Getty Research Journal, Curator: The Museum Journal, and other publications and I’m author of two books, Prospects Beyond Futures: Counterculture White Meets Red Power (Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2020) and Learning by Doing at the Farm: Craft, Science, and Counterculture in Modern California (with Anna Kryczka, Soberscove Press, 2014). Recent exhibition projects include Eso es la Vida/This is Life: Graphic Design from Mexico (Palm Springs Art Museum, 2023), Everyday or Not at All (ArtCenter, 2022), Fabien Cappello: Sillas Callejeras/Street Chairs (UC Berkeley), Designed in California (SFMOMA, 2018) and MEXICO 68: Design and Dissent (SFMOMA, 2018).
At ArtCenter, I teach courses in design anthropology, science and technology studies, and material culture and curatorial studies. I previously taught at UC Berkeley and the California College of the Arts and held positions in SFMOMA’s Department of Architecture + Design, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science’s Artefacts, Actions and Knowledge initiative, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the Getty Research Institute. My work has received support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, UC MEXUS, the UC Institute for Research in the Arts, and other institutions.