Rebeca Méndez

Rebeca Méndez is a designer and artist who has achieved excellence and distinction in both fields. She is a professor at UCLA Design Media Arts, where she is the founder of the CounterForce Lab, a research and fieldwork studio for art, design, and environment. Her research and practice investigate design and media art in public space, critical approaches to public identities, and artistic projects based on field investigation methods. Her diverse works develop within science, design, and art through immersive installations, sound, video, photography, book arts, and drawing, with a focus on post-humanism, eco-feminism, the Anthropocene, and environmental justice. Méndez is known for her career-long com-mitment to design and art as a social and environmental force. Méndez has received significant recognition, including all three of the most prestigious awards—The National Design Award (2012), the AIGA Medal (2017), and induction to the One Club Creative Hall of Fame (2017). Méndez is the first Latina to be recognized since the inceptions of all three awards in 2000, 1920, and 1963, respectively. Her work is collected and exhibited widely in major art museums, including LACMA, SFMOMA, and MACO, Oaxaca.