IN-PERSON: Learning. Life. Work

Dr. Graham Cairns is an academic and author in the field of architecture who has written extensively on film, advertising and political communication. He has held Visiting Professor positions at universities in Spain, the UK, Mexico, the Gambia, South Africa and the US. He has led academic departments in the UK and the US. He has worked in architectural studios in London and Hong Kong and previously founded and ran a performing arts organisation, Hybrid Artworks, specialised in video installation and performance writing. He is author and editor of multiple books and articles on architecture as both a form of visual culture and a socio-political construct. He is currently director of the academic research organisation AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society), and Executive Editor of its associated journal Architecture_MPS.

Cindy Shearer is Professor and Program Chair for the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing and PhD in Psychology, concentrations in Integral Transpersonal and Somatic Psychology at CIIS. She also advises the Creative Dissertation Pathway, a joint curriculum for writers/artists within the PhD in East-West Psychology at CIIS. She is a writer, text/image artist, and curator and is working on Staying with Writing (working title), a collection of personal essays and practices for writers (for Bloomsbury Publishing).