Mexican artist, researcher and architectural designer.
His work uses architecture, drawing, sculpture, writing and video to explore histories of indigeneity in architectural modernity, the production of extreme environments, the spatial politics of the colonial encounters in North America and the architectures of social experiments. He has been an IDEAS Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians and a grantee of Jumex Foundation for Contemporary Art, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and DCASE, among others. His work has been shown at Prairie, DePaul Art Museum, BienalSur, Ca’ Foscari Zattere, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Uri-Eichen Gallery, SpaceP11 and Centro de Arte y Filosofía. He has been a guest speaker for institutions and organizations like DocTalks x MoMA for the Emilio Ambasz Institute, the American Institute of Architects, the Society of Architectural Historians, Smart Museum of Art, Materia Abierta, UPenn, MAS Context and CENTRO.
He is a lecturer of Architecture History and Studio at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Program Manager of the Katz Center for Mexican Studies at the University of Chicago and an Independent Spatial Designer.
CURRENTLY: How to see in the dark - CCAM - CoProsperity Sphere - May 2 - June 1, Chicago, group exhibition
UPCOMING: Thus we advance, harvesting our caravans - May 14 - June 15, MASContext, Chicago, Curatorial.
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Previous clients and collaborators include, Art Institute of Chicago, Singapore Art Museum, Edith Farnsworth House, Goethe-Institut Chicago, Michael Rakowitz Studio, Black Athena Collective, Dawit L. Petros, and Center for Latin American Studies at The University of Chicago.
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Department of Bi-National Affairs
On Nationalism
At Infernal Court - Extase Chicago
Department of Bi-National Affairs happens as an unexpected response to Ortega’s participation in the open call for Border Wall Designs requested by the Department of Homeland Security. Ortega was a member of MADE Collective, the team that proposed to create a new country called Otra Nation, shared by Mexico and the USA. The video presents a rant recorded by a videoblogger from Texas that believed that the proposal was actually due to happen and would subsequently dismantle the border. While reading the proposal in its entirety and choking back anger, the woman asks for Donald Trump’s help in “stopping this madness.” In an attempt to engage in a conversation with a delusional far right reality, Ortega sent a letter to this person pretending to be the new director of Bi-National Affairs for this new nation. There was no response to the letter and the video was removed from the platform afterwards.
-From Press Release for Infernal Court.
For Infernal Court, at Extase Chicago, Ortega repurposed and edited the content of her response into a series of slogans shown on a TV. The font used for the slogans is Joanna Nova, a typeface designed by Eric Gill, known sexual predator and pedophile. Joanna Nova is used for the official branding of the Department of Homeland Security of the USA.
This project is a parallel outcome from the Otra Nation proposal that MADE Collective (from which I was part of) formally submited to the Open Call for designing the US-Mex Border wall asked by the Trump Aministration. Our team proposed the creation of a new country between Mexico and the US, a sort of Utopian Chicano country called Otra Nation that would join both countries as a borderless buffer zone connected by a bi-national Hyperloop.
-From Press Release for Infernal Court.
For Infernal Court, at Extase Chicago, Ortega repurposed and edited the content of her response into a series of slogans shown on a TV. The font used for the slogans is Joanna Nova, a typeface designed by Eric Gill, known sexual predator and pedophile. Joanna Nova is used for the official branding of the Department of Homeland Security of the USA.
This project is a parallel outcome from the Otra Nation proposal that MADE Collective (from which I was part of) formally submited to the Open Call for designing the US-Mex Border wall asked by the Trump Aministration. Our team proposed the creation of a new country between Mexico and the US, a sort of Utopian Chicano country called Otra Nation that would join both countries as a borderless buffer zone connected by a bi-national Hyperloop.