Artist
Teddy Cruz
Via San Diego, CA, USA
Teddy Cruz is a professor of public culture and urbanism in the Visual Arts Department, Director of the Center for Urban Ecologies, and Co-director of the UCSD-Blum Cross-Border Initiative at the University of California, San Diego. Cruz is also the Co-Director of the Civic Innovation Lab for the City of San Diego, California. He is recognized internationally for his urban research of the Tijuana–San Diego border, advancing border immigrant neighborhoods as sites of cultural production, from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing and civic infrastructure. Cruz's investigation of this geography of conflict has inspired a practice and pedagogy that emerges from the particularities of this bicultural territory and the integration of theoretical research, pedagogy and design production. His practice and research convene knowledges from across the fields of architecture and urbanism, environmental and social practice, political theory and urban policy, visual arts and public culture, and mediate the interface between top down institutions (governments, universities, foundations) and bottom-up socio-economic, cultural and environmental intelligence embedded in communities.
