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Thanks to support from the Smithsonian Latino Center, we are thrilled to offer the entire film to view online for free. (An audio described version of the film is also available on YouTube.)

On his ancestral land in southern Colorado, designer Ronald Rael, along with his partner Virginia San Fratello, 3D-print monumental structures in mud, pushing the limits of technology and materials, while uncovering a dark history along the way.

Mud Frontier is screening at film festivals and in cities across the US and the world.

This virtual conversation and Q & A convened Chris J. Gauthier, the film’s director; Christina L. De León, Associate Curator of Latino Design at Cooper Hewitt; and Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, Studio Rael San Fratello founders. It was recorded live on November 17, 2021.

In this excerpt from the film, historian and writer Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez talks about blankets made by his once-enslaved great-great grandmother that were passed down to him.

Use the film in your classroom with this discussion guide, designed for students in grades 10–12.

This virtual symposium explores the hidden stories of enslaved Indigenous peoples, focusing on the legacy of Spanish colonization in the Americas and Asia and its impact on what is now the southwestern United States. Presented by the Smithsonian Latino Center, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, it was organized in association with the Smithsonian initiative Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past.

This glossary was presented as part of the virtual symposium, The Other Slavery: Histories of Indian Bondage from New Spain to the Southwestern United States.