Video Architect Talk

Helena Cardona

Landscapes of the Exodus
CCA MArch, 2019

The promise of mythical lands has driven migrants to walk across landscapes from the beginning of human history. Walking has been a universal intuition that has defined human species since the dawn of bipedal adventure. Yet, the rise of Trump has revealed the opposition of half of our country to a world premised on migration. On October 13th of 2018, a Migrant Caravan was formed in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, known for high levels of violence seeking asylum in Mexico and the United States. If, for the migrant walking is a political act, how can architecture empower by producing visibility or, perhaps more powerfully, invisibility? This thesis questions in what ways a series of Way-Stations might be designed to provide shelter and strategic cover, while also giving the migrant agency over their right to walk and seek out the beautiful. This thesis transgresses existing thresholds, and lays seeds for new forms of civic life. The spread of civilization is at heart the story of the migrant.

Helena Cardona is a recent graduate from the California College of the Arts, where she completed her Masters of Architecture. Her thesis research focused on Architecture as a political tool for advocacy, exploring the transgression of existing boundaries as a way to lay the seeds for new forms of civic architecture. In 2017 she completed her Bachelors of Art in Architecture at the University of New Mexico with a minor in Sustainability Studies. Helena grew up in the borderlands of Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico.