Zube Lecture: "A Nation of Walls," Presented by Chat Travieso


                         

In this Zube Lecture, hosted by the UMass Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, artist and designer Chat Travieso presents his research project, “A Nation of Walls,” which catalogues the history, physical remnants, and political legacies of race barriers erected to separate Black and White neighborhoods throughout the United States. Focusing on walls, fences, barricades, road closures, and buffer strips, the lecture explores how these obstructions materially divided and isolated communities, acted as overt symbols of exclusion and hostility, and reinforced discriminatory housing policies and practices. It also underscores ways communities have circumvented, subverted, refused, protested, and some cases removed these structures.