Date/Time
Date(s) - February 25, 2025 - March 8, 2025
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Location
Hatton Gallery, Visual Arts Building
Categories
On view February 25 – March 14, 2025
Open Monday-Friday, 10a.m.– 4p.m.
A border is never just a line. It is defined by its physical breadth—a stretch of land or an architectural divide—and by its conceptual, emotional, and social density. Borders are realms of friction and fluidity, where ideas, identities, and systems are constantly negotiated and reshaped.
Ronald Rael operates in the very “thickness” of borders. Since 2000, he and collaborator Virginia San Fratello have journeyed along the US–Mexico divide, researching the changing landscapes, infrastructures, histories, and communities. Their 2019 public intervention with pink teeter-totters transformed the rigid border wall into a moment of connection and play, forever altering our collective imagination.
Born and raised in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, where his family has lived for over eight generations, Rael continues a long ancestral tradition of building and restoring local adobe architecture while integrating cutting-edge 3D printing technology. His practice dismantles the traditional separation between art, design, and STEM, offering a radical vision of innovation and sustainable building for the 21st century and beyond.
This multi-media exhibition introduces Rael’s expansive practice while highlighting initiatives at CSU that are in dialogue with his work, including a human-scale 3D printer for clay designed and built by artist and professor Del Harrow. Coinciding with Rael’s visit as the 2025 Scott Artist, the exhibition serves as an active research space, fostering inquiry, experimentation, and campus-wide dialogue.
Organized by Xinran Yuan, Director of Exhibitions and Community Engagement, this project was made possible, in part, through a grant from the Lilla B. Morgan Memorial Endowment.
On March 4, Ronald Rael will be giving a Public Artist Talk at the Iris & Michael Smith Alumni Center. For more information and to register to attend, visit this website.