Indigenous fishing village in Huahini, French Polynesia. Image from Julia Watson’s “Lo-TEK Water, A Field Guide for TEKnology” (2025).
CANCELLED: Julia Watson: The Historic Preservation Lecture
Julia Watson will deliver the Historic Preservation Lecture as part of the Sam Fox School’s Public Lecture Series at WashU.
About Julia Watson
Julia Watson is an Australian-born designer, educator, author, TED speaker, and radical thought leader of Greco-Egyptian-English heritage, known for championing climate-resilient design through ancestral technologies. Trained as an architect in First Nations knowledge systems, she co-authored “Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism” and “Lo—TEK Water: A Field Guide for TEKnology” with Indigenous experts, spearheading the global Lo—TEK movement. She co-founded the Lo—TEK Institute and the Lo—TEK Office for Intercultural Urbanism, both co-led by Indigenous and non-Indigenous designers and scientists. A lecturer at Harvard and Columbia Universities, Watson has collaborated with Nike, LEGO, Gensler, and Buro Happold, continually redefining sustainability through ancestral wisdom.
More Upcoming Lectures
Apr 15 at 5:30pm • Museum Lobby
Being and Becoming in Contemporary Chinese Art
This talk by Peggy Wang, associate professor of art history and Asian studies at Bowdoin College, addresses the conflicting pressures that artists in China confronted during the 1990s and early 2000s, including rapid urbanization and cultural globalization. Even as they navigated political constraints and deficits in resources, contemporary artists enacted productive strategies for making and exhibiting their art. This lecture foregrounds artists’ assertions of being and becoming, both as critical tactics for configuring identity and generative topics unto themselves. Wang will particularly examine how artists studied the vibrant dynamics of change through temporal, historical, and material dimensions in their art.
This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Looking Back Toward the Future: Contemporary Photography from China, on view at the Kemper Art Museum from February 27 to July 27, 2026.
Part of the Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series