Swamplands is a yearlong research and exhibition series at Storefront for Art and Architecture focused on the ethical and technical entanglements of water. The program takes the murky soil and unstable grounds of swamps as a conceptual framework to highlight the ecological and socioeconomic intricacies that lie at the threshold between bodies of water and land. In addition to commissioned exhibitions, this multi-sited project also unfolds through public programs, radio broadcasts, a research fellowship, an open call, and a thematic reader that aids in connecting with other geographies dealing with the increasing complexities of wetlands. Individually and collectively, these artistic expressions challenge perceptions of swamps as unstable environments, portraying them instead as sites of inherent duality and hybridity, both of emergence and transformation, of care and kinship, as well as of violence and neglect.

Jingru (Cyan) Cheng works across architecture, anthropology, and filmmaking. Her practice follows drifting bodies—from rural migrant workers to forms of water—to confront intensified social injustice and ecological crisis. Cheng is a Harvard University Graduate School of Design 2023 Wheelwright Prize recipient for TRACING SAND. Her work has been exhibited internationally as part of Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics at ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany (2020–22), Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2019), 18th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia (2018), among others, and is included in the Architectural Association’s permanent collection. Shen holds a PhD by Design and MPhil Projective Cities from the Architectural Association and was the codirector of AA Wuhan Visiting School from 2015–17. She coled the MA architectural design studio Politics of the Atmosphere from 2019–22, and teaches an interdisciplinary module across all schools at the Royal College of Art in London. She is also Canadian Centre for Architecture’s 2024–25 CCA-Mellon Multidisciplinary Researcher on field research as a land-dependent practice.

Gala Porras-Kim received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a master’s in Latin American studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial (2019); Ural Industrial Biennial (2019); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2017); the Seoul City Museum of Art (2017); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); FRAC Pays de la Loire, France (2016); 44th Salon Nacional de Artistas, Pereira Museum, Colombia (2016); the Los Angeles Public Art Biennial (2016); the Made in LA biennial, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016). She has received awards including Art Matters (2019), Artadia (2017), Joan Mitchell Foundation (2016), Creative Capital (2015), and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (2015). She was a recent David and Roberta Logie Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and current artist in residence at The Getty.

Chen Zhan is an architect, anthropologist, and independent filmmaker, trained at the Architectural Association and SOAS University of London respectively. Since 2019, Zhan has used film as a collaborative medium to conduct long-term research-oriented projects. Her projects include Orchid, Bee and I, a fictional ethnography reflecting on personal and collective experiences of living through the climate crisis and the Covid pandemic, and RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING, a transdisciplinary endeavor that tunes into how Chinese rural migrant workers make worlds. As an Architects Registration Board (ARB) registered architect, Zhan has worked on various award-winning projects across scales and sectors internationally since 2011, including the Maggie’s Cancer Care Center in Leeds, United Kingdom. Chen is currently part of the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s CCA-Mellon multidisciplinary research group—In the Hurricane, On the Land—looking into field research as a land-dependent practice.

José Esparza Chong Cuy is a curator, writer, and architect from Mexico. He is the executive director and chief curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture. Prior to arriving at Storefront in 2018, he was associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Museo Jumex in Mexico City. Between 2007–12 he lived in New York and held positions as curatorial associate at Storefront for Art and Architecture, research fellow at the New Museum, and contributing editor at Domus magazine. In 2013, he was cocurator of the Lisbon Architecture Triennial.

Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa is a curator, editor and researcher whose work focuses on the intersection of space, care, and power. Ruiz de Teresa operates across disciplinary boundaries to interrogate the way in which art, design and politics shape each other. Trained as an architect and urbanist at the Architectural Association and Universidad Iberoamericana, Ruiz de Teresa received a master’s degree in design studies at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and is a Stavros Niarchos Foundation PhD Scholar at the Royal College of Art where he was also a visiting lecturer and researcher. He is deputy director and curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Jessica Kwok is a curator and researcher based in New York. Her practice is interested in fracturing governing frameworks in relation to cultural production, labor, and performances of womanhood, with a focus on solidarities within the Global South and their diasporas. She founded and directed domesti.city, a project space in Lower Manhattan that ran from 2018–20 and her writing has appeared in various arts and culture publications. She holds a BFA from the University of Western Australia and a master’s in architecture from The New School. Kwok currently serves as associate curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Storefront for Art and Architecture advances innovative and critical ideas that contribute to an understanding and appreciation of the built environment and public life. Through exhibitions, events, and other public programming, Storefront provides alternative platforms for dialogue and collaboration across disciplinary, geographic, and ideological boundaries.