UC Davis Professor, Artist Speaks at Aspen Ideas Festival
Beatriz Cortez, a multidisciplinary artist and professor of Chicana/o/x studies at UC Davis, recently spoke with UC Berkeley Professor Ronald Rael at Aspen Ideas Festival 2026. Their panel, Ancient Futures: from Mud to Machine, was moderated by Nora Lawrence, executive director of Storm King Art Center in New York.
The flagship gathering of the Aspen Institute in Colorado, the Aspen Ideas Festival took place June 25 through July 1. It featured panels, interviews, lectures and interactive sessions on topics shaping the AI revolution, business and the economy, the role of art throughout all aspects of our lives, geopolitics, sports, leadership, and more, according to the festival's website.
Cortez and Rael's discussion is described as an examination of "10,000 years of knowledge and craft" as "two artists engage with ancient technology not as historical artifact but as living blueprint. From adobe architecture to Indigenous material traditions, they ask what ancestral intelligence has to teach us about innovation — and how it can be combined with the tools of our technological age to discover what comes next."
Cortez’s recent solo exhibitions include at Storm King Art Center, Williams College Museum of Art, and Commonwealth and Council. Her work was included in the 60th International Exhibition at the Venice Biennale and 14th Shanghai Biennial. Cortez’s work is currently on view at Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, New York’s New Museum, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego. She is the recipient of the Latinx Artist Fellowship, Vera List Center for Art and Politics’ Borderlands Fellowship, and Artadia Los Angeles Award.
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