Regionalia, a bilingual catalog, documents the research, projects, and culminating exhibition generated during Cog•nate Collective’s artist residency at Grand Central Arts Center. The 128-page catalog includes an additional 32-page insert drawn from public conversations that took place throughout the exhibition. The publication contains texts by Cog•nate Collective, Christian Zúñiga, and a dialogue between the artists and Karen Stocker.

Cog•nate Collective develops research projects, public interventions, and experimental pedagogical programs in collaboration with communities across the US/Mexico border region. Founded in 2010, their work has interrogated the evolution of the border as it is simultaneously erased by neoliberal economic policies and bolstered through increased militarization – tracing the fallout of this incongruence for migrant communities on either side of the border. As a result, their inter-disciplinary projects often address issues of citizenship, migration, informal economies, and popular culture, arguing for understanding the border not as a bifurcating line, but as a region that expands and contracts with the movement of people and objects. They currently work between Tijuana, MX, Santa Ana, CA, and Los Angeles, CA.

John D. Spiak was appointed Director/Chief Curator of California State University Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Center (GCAC), Santa Ana in September of 2011. His curatorial emphasis is on contemporary art and society, with focus on works in socially engaged practices, installation, and video. Prior to his appointment at GCAC, he was Curator at the Arizona State University Art Museum and acting curator in charge of the ASU Art Museum residency series Social Studies.

Karen Stocker is a Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton. As a cultural anthropologist specializing in Costa Rica, her research subjects have included Chorotega Indigenous narrative tradition, women’s civic and cultural engagement, ethnic identity and schooling, tourism and cultural change, and youth-led social movements.

Christian Zúñiga is the director of the undergraduate Fine Art program at the Art School of the UABC. He is also a member of the arts and culture collective Taltecan, author of the book Downtown Tijuana: Urban Landscape and Imaginary, and editor of the anthology Stories of the border and other customs: A Young Chronicle of Tijuana. He develops community-based art projects that focus on the cultural impact of socioeconomic processes in urban territories, addressing topics that include lived space, violence, migration, and the border.

ELLA is a Los Angeles-based design studio founded by River Jukes-Hudson, Stephen Serrato, and Dante Carlos. The ELLA team has worked with artists, cultural institutions, writers, architects, performers, educators, and other designers for over 15 years. ELLA specializes in printed matter (mainly books) and design for exhibitions. Priorities of the studio include: representing multiple perspectives, translation, play, learning, disruption and justice.

Grand Central Art Center (GCAC) is committed to the open exploration of contemporary art and visual culture through socially engaged collaborations among artists and communities. GCAC is unit of California State University, Fullerton – College of the Arts in partnership with the City of Santa Ana, CA.