Matthew Coolidge will bring his profound understanding of the nature of human interaction with the earth’s surface to West Virginia University as part of a visiting artist lecture at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 7, in Bloch Learning and Performance Hall, 200A Creative Arts Center.
Coolidge is the founder and director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation, an education and research organization based in Los Angeles. The Center takes a broadly interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of land use, drawing on the natural sciences, sociology, art, architecture, and history in order to increase and diffuse knowledge about how land in the United States is apportioned, utilized, and perceived.
“The Center for Land Use Interpretation is an exemplary model of cross-disciplinary research,” said Michael Sherwin, associate professor of photography and intermedia in WVU’s School of Art and Design. “The Center is the lead agency for the establishment of the American Land Museum, a network of exhibition sites in various interpretive zones across the country, which together form a dynamic portrait of the national landscape.”
The work of the Center has been presented in museums, universities, and noncommercial exhibit spaces across the United States, and Europe.
The CLUI exists to stimulate discussion, thought, and general interest in the contemporary landscape. Neither an environmental group nor an industry affiliated organization, the work of the Center integrates the many approaches to land use—the many perspectives of the landscape—into a single vision that illustrates the common ground in “land use” debates. At the very least, the Center attempts to emphasize the multiplicity of points of view regarding the utilization of terrestrial and geographic resources.
Coolidge teaches in the curatorial practice program at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He is the author and editor of several books, including “Overlook: Exploring the Internal Fringes of America” with the Center for Land Use Interpretation, and “The Nevada Test Site: A Guide to the Nation’s Nuclear Proving Ground.”
The lecture is free and open to the public.
-WVU-
dw/3/29/16
CONTACT: David Welsh, WVU College of Creative Arts
304.293.3397; David.Welsh@mail.wvu.edu
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