Set in the remote San Luis Valley of Colorado, Mud Frontier: Architecture at the Borderlands is a feature-length documentary film that follows design studio Rael San Fratello’s experimentation with 3D-printing technology and traditional adobe architecture, presented by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The film offers an intimate, tactile look at Mud Frontiers, a project led by artist-architects, UC Berkeley Art practice Chair Ronald Rael, and Virginia San Fratello, who use 3D-printing technology to build adobe structures on Rael’s ancestral homelands in Colorado’s San Luis Valley.
In an area where Indigenous and European colonists have historically lived both in harmony and in conflict with one another, Rael San Fratello reflect on this legacy to forge new methods of creative production.
The film is presented by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Support provided by the Smithsonian Latino Initiative, which offers the entire film for free.