Lecture: “The American Land Museum: Places as Cultural Artifacts.” In collaboration with the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Harvard Art Museums presented the 2019 Curatorial Innovations Lecture with Matthew Coolidge, founder and director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI). CLUI explores how land in the United States is apportioned, utilized, and perceived. Through exhibitions and public programs, the center interprets built landscapes—from landfills and urban waterfalls to artificial lakes—as cultural artifacts that help define contemporary American life and culture. In this lecture, Coolidge discusses the center’s approach to finding meaning in the intentional and incidental forms we create. He will focus on the center’s efforts to develop the American Land Museum, a curated selection of locations across the country that exemplifies our relationship with the American landscape. Matthew Coolidge is founder and director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angeles, a nonprofit research and education organization founded in 1994 that is interested in understanding the nature and extent of human interaction with the earth’s surface, and in finding new meanings in the intentional and incidental forms that we individually and collectively create. He has a background in contemporary art, architecture, and film and studied environmental science as an undergraduate at Boston University. He has been a teacher in the Curatorial Practice Program at the California College of Art and has lectured and worked with students at universities around the United States and abroad. This lecture was co-sponsored by the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and the Harvard Art Museums. Wednesday, April 17, 2019, Menschel Hall, Harvard Art Museums.