Mise-en-Scène: The Lives & Afterlives of Urban Landscapes (ORO Editions, 2021)
Conceived as a unique collaboration between urbanist, Chris Reed, and photographer, Mike Belleme, the book combines photo essays, original maps and drawings, newly commissioned essays, excerpts from historical writings, and interviews with residents. The result is a rigorous and artful examination of the social, cultural, environmental, and economic challenges of life in American cities today.
The accompanying exhibition pulls from the book's visual case studies, which depict life in seven American cities: Los Angeles, Galveston, St. Louis, Green Bay, Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Boston. Through this thoughtful exploration of everyday moments and the urbanism that supports them, Reed and Belleme present new opportunities for creating direct interaction between citizens, and propose an ecological and social focus for city-building around a concept of common ground.
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Chris Reed is founder and design director of Stoss Landscape Urbanism, a design and strategic planning practice in Boston and Los Angeles, and professor in practice of landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is a leading voice on issues related to climate adaptation, racial and social equity, urban landscape, and the sociability of cities.
Mike Belleme is a freelance photographer based in Asheville, North Carolina. His work ranges from long-form documentary projects to assignment-based editorial work, photojournalism, and portraiture. His practice involves photographing from a space of emotional availability and vulnerability and exploring themes involving connection and disconnection from that space.
Reed and Belleme present the Myles H. Thaler Lecture in Landscape Architecture on Monday, October 24 at 5 pm (ET).
This exhibition is supported by the Myles H. Thaler endowment.
Image by Mike Belleme, from Mise-en-Scène: The Lives and Afterlives of Urban Landscapes (ORO Editions, 2021).
