Dr Catalina Mejia Moreno

Biography

Catalina Mejía Moreno is a sea swimmer, spatial practitioner, writer, educator and researcher. She is interested in practices of resistance, environmental, racial and spatial justice, as well as ecofeminist practice and thought. Through creative practice, activism and critique, she imagines tangible pathways for social and ecological restorations and imaginations.

Catalina is the Climate Studies Lead across Spatial Practices. Since joining CSM she has been working in developing the Climate Forum (climate-forum.com), a research, curriculum and exchange platform that brings the urgent focus of the climate and ecological emergency to the core of the Spatial Practices Programme. Originally from Colombia, now based in the UK, her research and practice are predominantly focused on the global majority, intercultural dialogues and forms of situated practice. Her current research projects include a mapping exercise and forthcoming publication in collaboration with the Inga Indigenous Peoples of Colombia that foregrounds Inga ancestral inhabitation knowledges as a seeding ground for the Inga AWAI forthcoming University; and Pororoca: Abraz(ç)o de río y mar, a collaborative process-based curriculum funded by re:arc institute that, through deep listening, allows for time and space to nurture conviviality, kinship and co-creation as the basis for reparative situated dialogues and practices.

She has previously taught at the University of Sheffield, University of Brighton, Queen Mary University of London, and the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She teaches across BA and MA Architecture, as well as in MA Cities and MA Narrative Environments. Catalina holds a BA in Architecture from Universidad de los Andes, Colombia, an MA in Architectural History from the Bartlett School of Architecture, and a PhD in Architectural Theory and Criticism from Newcastle University. She has been Mellon Fellow on the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and a DAAD and J. Paul Getty Trust grant holder, and more recently a Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and a 2023/24 re:arc institute initiatives grant awardee.

Catalina is part of the editorial board of Exploring Architecture by Birkhäuser, and of DESCAMINO publishing series by Lettera Veintidue, She is also part of the Scientific Committee of Dearquitectura Architecture Journal in Bogotá, Colombia.