Interrogating art and architecture’s role in the soft war policies of the United States in Mexico (1924-1972), Moore’s project argues that the same aesthetic lens that fostered the International Style of modern architecture reshaped the ancestral seeds and agricultural landscapes at the Mexican origins of the global Green Revolution. A Rockefeller Foundation initiative, the Green Revolution is now known as the technoscientific transformation of worldwide agriculture. Interrogating newly surfaced photos by Tina Modotti, and the Chapingo Murals by Diego Rivera and Xavier Guerrero, this project reveals how these Mexican Modernists partnered with Indigenous Acolhua and Mexica communities to establish over thirty Free Schools of Agriculture, challenging Green Revolution precursors with ancestral-modern architecture and development alternatives. While scholarship on the scientific breakthroughs of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Green Revolution abounds, this work argues for the agency exercised by art, architecture, and aesthetics in one of the Anthropocene’s most impactful rural developments.

Dr. Nikki Moore, S.M.Arch.S. is an Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University, teaching courses in global architectural history and the art and architecture of Latin America. Her current research examines food-based commodity development practices in modern Latin America, focusing on their symbiotic relationships with art, architectural practice, and social justice. Between 2018-2020, Moore was a fellow with the University-Based Institute for Advanced Study Intercontinental Academia. Her research is supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Mellon Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the Wagoner Foundation, Wake Forest University, and the Society of Architectural Historians. Moore has published work in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.