Student Spotlight: Marc Armeña '24
2024 Mary Ellen Hale Lovett Travel Fellow
Marc may have graduated in the spring double majoring in art history and mechanical engineering, but his studies continues with the HART Lovett Fellowship as he flies to Argentina this summer to conduct research in preparation for graduate school in architecture.
“I find my research focus following the extractive landscape along the Río de la Plata, tracing the river as an atlas to map the networks of food production that incised the terrain and urban fabric along the Southern Cone of Latin America during the twentieth century. How did soy, maize, and meat emerge as monocultures in tandem with escalating modernization and urbanization in Argentina and Uruguay? To what extent did food form modern medical and industrial knowledge, and in turn, shape the design of institutions such as hospitals and factories within the urban structures of Buenos Aires and Uruguay? These questions point me to examine how these resources moved between nature and the city, acquiring diverse values as commodities, commodity producers, objects for scientific knowledge, and vectors of maladies — while interrogating how design and aesthetics co-participated in these transactions.”
The Lovett Travel Fellowship provides students with the opportunity to enhance their educational experience at Rice by traveling to significant sites to conduct field research in art history and architectural history.