ALBERTO ORTEGA-TREJO
Artist, researcher and architectural designer.
Get in touch by clicking here: ✉
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 the American Institute
of Architects, the Society of Architectural Historians, Smart Museum of Art, Committee on Environment Geography and Urbanization, DocTalks x MoMA, Materia
Abierta, UPenn, MAS Context and CENTRO.
He has taught Architectural History and Studio at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and he served as Program Manager of the Katz Center for Mexican Studies at the University of Chicago from 2021 to 2026. Ortega-Trejo is currently a PhD student in Architectural History and Theory at Princeton University.
ARTIFICIAL-AGENCY
Architectural Consultancy
Exhibition Strategy
Research and Publication
Previous clients and collaborators include, Public Media Institute, North East Asia Art Archive, 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 and Caribbean Studies at The University of Chicago.
Keep scrolling for selected projects ↆ
manifesTEA
A platform for random encounters
An installation about other speeds and rythms for protest and dialogue
What kind of conversations are triggered around a warm and free cup of tea? A product troubling by its colonial traces. manifesTEA was a temporary installation at the Chicago Design Museum that questions interactions and typologies. (The Chicago Design Museum is located at Block37, a commercial space directly connected with the CTA trains in the lower level of the building) A free cup of tea is offered in this money-speed driven space. The visitors are asked nothing but its suggested that they leave a message along with their tea-bag as a memory of their presence and to share what kind of struggles concern them.
in collaboration with: Martha Poggioli, Sonia Cheng, Thomas Kong, Ellie Tse, Rachel Wang, Celine Setiadi and Sampson Wong.
in collaboration with: Martha Poggioli, Sonia Cheng, Thomas Kong, Ellie Tse, Rachel Wang, Celine Setiadi and Sampson Wong.