Barrel Hall
Jai Kumaran: Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture Lecture
Jai Kumaran will deliver the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Architecture Lecture as part of the Sam Fox School’s Public Lecture Series at WashU.
About Jai Kumaran
Jai Kumaran is an architect and founding partner at West of West, where he leads design, strategic direction, and firm management across a range of diverse project types alongside a team of talented collaborators. His studio’s work over the last decade has been widely published and awarded internationally, including The New York Times, Dwell, Monocle, Interior Design, The Local Project, Architect’s Newspaper, FRAME Magazine, Hypebeast, Architizer, The Plan, Dezeen, and by multiple chapters of the AIA. Driven by curiosity and commitment to cross-disciplinary collaboration, his work explores how art, culture, design, and technology can shape contemporary life. He is dedicated to building a world centered on optimism and design excellence. Kumaran earned his Bachelor of Architecture from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo and his Master of Architecture from UCLA. He currently serves on the board of directors of the L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, and is a longtime supporter of the arts, a registered architect, and member of the American Institute of Architects.
More Upcoming Lectures
Nov 11 at 5:30pm • Kemper Art Museum
Roots and Rhizomes: Relational Networks in the Art of Carolina Caycedo
In 2022, Carolina Caycedo stewarded the planting of an indigenous shadbush tree in a community garden in New York City’s East Harlem (El Barrio). This living organism, whose metaphorical seeds grew from Caycedo’s ongoing “Genealogy of Struggle” series, inspires Susanna V. Temkin’s exploration of the artist’s work within larger relational networks. Expanding ecological and symbolic concepts associated with roots, seeds, and branches, Temkin considers connections within Caycedo’s practice and across broader art histories of the Americas. In particular, Temkin will address connections to other artists in Caycedo’s work, along with broader histories of protest, ecofeminism, solidarity, and resistance.
This talk is presented in conjunction with the exhibition “Carolina Caycedo: Growing Deep Roots”, as well as the forthcoming presentation of Confluencias at El Museo del Barrio, New York (originated at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo).
About the Speaker
Susanna V. Temkin is an art historian and the interim chief curator at El Museo del Barrio, where she has worked since 2018. Temkin earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where her research focused on modern art in the Americas, with a concentration on Cuba. At El Museo, her curatorial credits include the museum’s fiftieth anniversary exhibition, "Culture and the People" (2019), “La Trienal” (2020, 2024, and forthcoming 2027 edition), and the recent monograph of photographer Sophie Rivera (2026), among others. Prior to El Museo, she served as assistant curator at Americas Society in New York, as well as the research and archive specialist at the Cecilia de Torres Ltd., where she assisted in co-authoring the digital catalogue raisonné of artist Joaquín Torres-García. Temkin contributed essays to several exhibition catalogues and publications and is currently serving on the editorial board of the Journal of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture.