Desert/Structure/Modernism, an interdisciplinary research cluster at UCI, explores issues relating to the desert and the built environment, from nuclear test sites to land art, squatters’ communities to mid-century modern architecture.
On Thursday, October 15, the group welcomes California-based artist Kim Stringfellow to UCI. Stringfellow wil give a talk titled “The Mojave Project: Rockhounding, Landspeeding and Fossil Water Portals.” Stringfellow, currently a Guggenheim fellow, creates multimedia works that combine photography, film, and documentary techniques, with a focus on cultural geography and the environment. Through installation projects like Greetings from the Salton Sea and Jackrabbit Homestead, Stringfellow has explored the complex social and cultural issues that frame the intersection of human and environmental ecologies in the desert.
During winter quarter, the cluster will sponsor a short film series at UCI with speakers and in the spring, it will showcase three UCI MFA projects that focus on desert-related themes. The year’s culminating event will be a two-day symposium, “The Fabricated American Desert: Modern and Anti-modern” at the Huntington Museum and Library in San Marino, April 15-16.
Department: UC Irvine Humanities Commons
Date and Time: October 15, 2015 – 5:00 PM
Event Location: Humanities Gateway 1030
For more info: www.humanities.uci.edu/commons/