An architect, activist, and researcher, Sergio Beltrán-García engages with aesthetic and political practices of transitional justice by using memory as an entry point. He has contributed to the development of eleven memorials for distinct events of violence—both in contestation of and in collaboration with different levels of the Mexican government. Among these are the memorials for the fatal 2008 police raid of the New's Divine nightclub in Mexico City, the forced disappearance of 109 peasants during the 1970s Mexican Counterinsurgency, and the collapses of buildings during the 2017 earthquakes in Mexico.
Sergio works closely with victims of human rights violations, their advocates and communities, to mobilize critical theories coupled with advanced technologies and transdisciplinary research methods in a diversity of political, cultural, and legal forums. A Chevening scholar, he completed with distinction postgraduate studies at Goldsmiths University of London, and he currently researches with Forensic Architecture. He is a member of the Memory Studies Association, and has received fellowships at the Aspen Institute, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Monument Lab.
As a Teaching Artist at Urbano Project, Sergio lead “Who Owns the Past/Present?”, a Workshop exploring monuments, memorials, memory, representation, and justice. Youth Artists will research, conceptualize, and build a collaborative memorial in public space that honors personal and collective histories that are important to them.
WORK SAMPLES
