Global Cities, Model Worlds is a traveling exhibition about the spatial and social impacts of "mega events," such as Olympic games and world's fairs. The host cities of these mega events seek to transform themselves through planning, architecture, and ideology, becoming "global cities" in the process. Locally, mega events pave the way for redevelopment projects that can create new public resources such as parks or transportation, but often result in significant displacement of residents or industry, thus reinforcing existing social inequities. This exhibition will contrast the promise of transformation with the on-the-ground realities of urban development. Global Cities, Model Worlds will synthesize visual and narrative evidence from over a decade of research and dozens of site visits, using documentary methods coupled with more interpretative and poetic models. Three main components include a dimensional wall-mural, a selection of free-standing case studies, and an audio/video component that is site-specific to the host venue's city. The exhibition will travel through 2013 to cities that hosted an Olympics or an Olympic bid and/or a world's fair.

Ryan Griffis is an artist currently teaching new media art at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His writing has appeared in publications such as New Art Examiner, RePublic, ArtUS, Artlink, Rhizome, and Furtherfield. He has curated exhibitions for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Turbulence.org, Greenmuseum.org, and George Mason University on themes that include the politics of genetic technologies, energy consumption, and artistic forays into agriculture. Under the name Temporary Travel Office, Ryan creates work and publications that attempt to use tourism as an opportunity for critical public encounters. These encounters include public tours of urban parking lots, speculative proposals for parks and hotels, and most recently, a series of experimental guidebooks. These works have been presented in various institutional forums, including the Bureau for Open Culture (Columbus College of Art & Design), AREA Chicago, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.

Lize Mogel is an interdisciplinary artist who works at the interstices between art and cultural geography. She creates and disseminates counter-cartography—maps and mappings that produce new understandings of social and political issues. Her work connects the real history and collective imaginary about specific places to larger narratives of global economies. She has mapped public parks in Los Angeles, future territorial disputes in the Arctic, and wastewater economies in New York. She is coeditor of the book/map collection An Atlas of Radical Cartography and cocurator of the traveling exhibition An Atlas. Exhibitions include the Gwangju (South Korea) and Sharjah (U.A.E.) Biennials, PS 1 (New York), Casco (Utrecht), and Experimental Geography (touring). She has lectured about her work at numerous venues internationally. She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the LEF Foundation, and the Danish Arts Council.

Sarah Ross is an artist who works in video, sculpture, and photography. Her projects use narrative and the body to address spatial concerns as they relate to access, class, anxiety, and activism. Ross has cocurated exhibitions at SPACES Gallery, Cleveland; Sea and Space Explorations, Los Angeles; and PS 122, New York. She works collaboratively with artists and neighborhood groups to produce public projects. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute Chicago and at an Illinois state prison. Ross is the recipient of grants from the Graham Foundation, the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, and the Illinois Art Council. She has exhibited work at the Armory, Pasadena, CA; Gallery 727, Los Angeles; PS 122, New York; Columbia College, Chicago; Pinkard Gallery, Baltimore; META Cultural Foundation, Romania; and the Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal.