Five years ago Gabriella Gómez-Mont had a tremendously provocative offer from the newly elected Mayor of Mexico City: to invent a new type of city department from scratch. Shape-shifting and experimental, specialising in the gaps and tensions between things; civics, politics and humanities in continuous conversation.

So what happened when a journalist / visual artist / documentary filmmaker is given free rein to convene a highly multidisciplinary team - artists, filmmakers, designers, writers, activists, historians and architects working hand in hand with political scientists, urban geographers, anthropologists, mathematicians, internationalists, urban planners, civic tech and AI experts - all bound together by their passion for a certain megalopolis? Experiencing the perils and possibilities of urban experiments and collaborative practices in a divided and gargantuan territory; tackling subjects such as governance, mobility, the right to the city and participatory infrastructures, reimagining social and urban realities from within.

[Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]