Projects that develop approaches to Panamá as a crossing point of world history and geography.

This 2-year Integrated Pathway studio is focused on Panamá, a key geopolitical location for global logistics and flows of capital. Since colonial times, this terra firma has been the subject of dreams and practices of crossing. Yet it was only with the completion of the canal in 1914 that it became a complex global gateway. Distributed across shipping decks and financial networks, the wealth that traverses Panamá today appears increasingly disconnected from the life that develops on the canal’s flanks. How might we address this by means of design – and specifically by an approach to design that thinks of it as a kind of crossing that introduces friction to the smooth spaces of contemporary neoliberalism?