On 22 April, the North American conceptual artist and writer Jill Magid gave a videoconference open to the public entitled "The Proposal”, as part of the Foros lecture series organised by UIC Barcelona School of Architecture. Connecting from New York, Magid talked about her first documentary film, The Proposal (2018), which discusses the legacy of the Mexican architect Luis Barragán, and in particular the fact that a private corporation, Vitra, owns his archives and controls the rights in his name and work. For more than twenty years, this corporation has made his work largely inaccessible to the public. 

Almost as an invitation for image-making, Barragán was known to adjust a buildings’ design so that it would photograph better. With this film, I wanted to capture the overwhelming beauty of his work while simultaneously questioning the legal challenges one faces to do so," said the artist. 

Jill Magid is an adjunct teacher at Cooper Union, and the author of four novellas. Her work is included the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Fundacion Jumex, and the Walker Art Center, among others. Jill Magid's work is deeply ingrained in her lived experience and, in this context, the Magid explores the emotional, philosophical, and legal tensions that exist between the individual and the institutions and power structures. Her work has been exhibited in institutions around the world, including the Tate Modern in London, the Whitney Museum in New York, or the Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris. 

This year, Foros, an annual series of lectures about architecture, revolves around the title “Co-benefits”. Foros 2020 seeks to reflect on the links and the cultural interaction between contemporary architecture and other art forms such as dance, sculpture, film, and comics.