This keynote presentation analyzes the case of Tuvalu and its plans to become a fully virtual and digitized nation. Amid the unraveling of worlds, the possibility of Tuvalu's digital twin opens questions on how to address the fragility of environments and communities, their care, custodianship, preservation, and eventual loss in the face of the climate catastrophe. Otero will delve into the inherent tension between digital custodianship and the unsustainable practices of the data storage industry and explore notions of preservation, proliferation, and decay.
Marina Otero Verzier is an architect and researcher exploring the intersection between digital infrastructures and climate catastrophe. She teaches at Harvard GSD and leads the Data Mourning Clinic at GSAPP, Columbia University. A 2022 Harvard Wheelwright Prize winner, she collaborates with scientific institutions such as the DIPC Supercomputing Center on developing prototypes like Computational Compost awarded by Ars Electornica and the Spanish Biennial of Architecture. She contributed to Chile’s first National Data Centers Plan alongside local communities on the front lines of extractivism. Otero authored En las Profundidades de la Nube (2024), proposing new paradigms and aesthetics for data storage, integrating architecture, preservation, and digital culture. Previously, she headed the MA Social Design at Design Academy Eindhoven (2020-2023) and directed research at Het Nieuwe Instituut (2015-2022). Her curatorial work includes Opera Aperta (Special Mention, Venice Architecture Biennale, 2025), Wet Dreams (2024), Compulsive Desires (2023), and Work, Body, Leisure, the Dutch Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. She has co-edited Automated Landscapes (2023), Lithium: States of Exhaustion (2021), More-than-Human (2020), Architecture of Appropriation(2019), and After Belonging (2016), among others.
Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Marina Otero Verzier
Website:
gsd.harvard.edu/person/marina-otero
When?
5 March 2026
6:30 pm
Where?
Swissnex in San Francisco
Pier 17
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