Event
24 Oct 2024
Movie 5:30pm
Bar 5 - 7pm
Gallery 11 - 8pm
Stanford Perrott Lecture Theatre, AUArts
Face of a Nation: What Happened to the World's Fair?
Screening, Face of a Nation; What Happened to the World's Fair? A film by Mina Chow.
Please join us for a one night only screening of Face of a Nation: What Happened to the World’s Fair? This documentary film by Mina Chow (57 minutes) is presented in conjunction with the Illingworth Kerr Gallery’s current exhibition Sea of Clouds by Karen Tam.
Daughter of immigrants, an idealistic American architect struggles to keep her dream alive as she journeys to discover why America abandoned World's Fairs.
For generations of Americans, World’s Fairs captured visions of hope for the future as part of their collective memory. Mina Chow became fascinated when she saw pictures of her parents at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Beginning with their stories, Mina shares this legacy and American values that inspired her to become an architect.
She is excited to go to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. With over 73 million visitors, this World’s Fair breaks attendance records in all of human history. But what she discovers there not only destroys her confidence as an American architect; it is symptomatic of a country that has lost its way. Mina is discouraged but she begins a search for answers.
Mina Chow is an award-winning interdisciplinary filmmaker, licensed architect, USC Adjunct Assoc. Professor of Architecture and Faculty Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. The goal of Mina's work--to communicate important underlying relationships between design and culture--was recognized at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, and by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the California Architectural Foundation, the USC Ambassador’s Fund, the USC Fund for Innovative Teaching, and the Peerless Award for Architectural Design.
Image: US Pavilion 2011, Photo Credit: Jim Powers
