Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI)

Established 1994; based in Culver City, California, with offices in Troy, New York; Wendover, Utah; and the Mojave Desert
Matthew Coolidge, founder and director; Sarah Simons, associate director

The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) is a nonprofit organization that studies, interprets, and educates the public about the human impact on the earth’s surface. Reflecting the multidisciplinary perspective of its founder, who studied environmental science, contemporary art, and ilm at Boston University, CLUI aims to integrate the variety of approaches to and attitudes toward the landscape into “a single vision that illustrates the common ground in land use debates.” Through formal and informal research carried out by both its staff and volunteers, as well as aerial photography, CLUI documents all manner of intentional and accidental interventions in the landscape, from missile silos to corn field mazes and land ills to show caves. Studies typically explore a geographical region, a particular theme or land- scape condition, or a combination of the two. The massive amount of information that CLUI collects on an ongoing basis is captured in its Land Use Database and a photographic archive and is disseminated to the public through programs that range from exhibitions to field trips. CLUI also is the lead organization in the development of the American Land Museum, a national network of landscape exhibition sites. Its nearly two dozen books and pamphlets include Overlook: Exploring the Internal Fringes of America with the Center for Land Use Interpretation (2006) and Pavement Paradise: American Parking Space (2007). In 2006, the Smithsonian American Art Museum awarded Matthew Coolidge its Lucelia Artist Award for the unique point of view CLUI brings to understanding American culture through its landscape.