As one of the largest cities in the world, Mexico City serves as the first site in a series of early start study abroad art courses called Shifting Centers . This program focuses on destinations that deviate from the dominant paradigms of study abroad programs, in order to highlight less traveled to, but equally as significant sites of cultural productions. As a way to expand notions of creative communities, Shifting Centers further aims to reconsider how these cities contribute to the international arts ecosystem. Group tours will present participants with cultural-historical sites that reach back into pre-colonial times, while more intimate visits with community-centered institutions and practicing artists aim to directly engage students with those currently shaping cultural production at a local level. Participants will be guided through and engaged in collaborative models of learning to develop an understanding of site specific research that will serve to bolster their individual practices. In a series of group discussions, workshops, and curated culinary experiences students will investigate how research can be (re)imagined when abroad and when working collaboratively amongst community. Course content is designed to think critically about these destinations through an intersectional framework that considers overlapping histories of art, design, architecture, food.