Contango Journal: An Unintentional Trilogy

Marya Demetra Kanakis is a Greek-American architect and editor. Spanning ecology, urbanism, media theory, and curation, her explorations critique ecologies of cities as a coexistence between humans and machines revealing new representations of nature through technology. From designing healthcare clinics, to completing urban design research for SOM, to working on sustainable housing projects for Kanye West – Marya’s work transcends scales of typical practice, revolving around her interests in science, technology, botany, books, and art. Her recent research, Grafted Natures: The Ecology of a Blurred Species proposes repositioning authorship in the anthropocene. She writes on the history of mankind as told through parallel histories of grafting (botanical and medical) exposing centuries of authorship in reconstructing nature – and translating this to the design of a book. Similar themes carry into formats of other work, such as video installations of 3d-scanned genetically modified crops. Current research interrogates new methods of publication design and bookmaking, culminating into proposals for new models of publishing houses. Her methodology for all projects involves spatializing bibliographies and extracting these logics into new associations. After completing her studies at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Marya returned to IIT to teach a studio on the topic of health and urbanism. Her work has been featured at exhibitions in Cambridge, Chicago, Venice, Milan, Rome, Mexico City, and Munich.