New Cities, Future Ruins is a four-year curatorial initiative inviting artists, designers, and thinkers to re-imagine and engage the extreme urbanism of America’s Western Sun Belt.

Fast-growing symbols of opportunity and entrepreneurialism, the region’s cities are sprawling agglomerations in delicate ecosystems, marked by resource overuse, dramatic demographic change, and political struggle that particularize and illuminate global crises of rapid urbanization. Suburban in texture, they are 21st-century spaces that resist creative and political strategies inherited from the industrial city. Bringing critical and innovative practices from around the world to bear on this urban landscape, New Cities, Future Ruins is designed to foster visionary thought and artistic experimentation at these urgent sites.

Launching with a convening in Dallas, TX (2016), the initiative will expand to include artist residencies and public projects around the region (2017-18) and culminate in an international touring exhibition and publication (2019).

New Cities, Future Ruins is lead by Artistic Director Gavin Kroeber. The founding partners in the initiative are the SMU Meadows School for the Arts, which will host the Dallas convening, ASU Gammage, and UTEP Rubin Center for the Visual Arts.