The Graham Foundation is pleased to present the premier launch of the Graham grantee project Dirt (MIT Press, 2012) and a talk by Megan Born, who co-edited the book along with Lily Jencks. Dirt presents a selection of works that share dirty attitudes: essays, interviews, excavations, and projects that view dirt not as filth but as a medium, a metaphor, a material, a process, a design tool, a narrative, a system. Rooted in the landscape architect's perspective, Dirt views dirt not as repulsive but endlessly giving, fertile, adaptive, and able to accommodate difference while maintaining cohesion. This dirty perspective sheds light on social connections, working processes, imaginative ideas, physical substrates, and urban networks.

Dirt is the latest installment from the student-edited and student-managed publication entity viaPublications, a collaborative of interdisciplinary students, professors, and professionals, founded by graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

Helene Furján is the series editor and faculty advisor for viaBooks. Contributors to Dirt include Barry Bergdoll, Alan Berger, Anita Berrizbeitia, Megan Born, William Braham, Lindsay Bremner, Kim Brickley, Case Brown, Mark Campbell, James Corner, Phillip Crosby, Keller Easterling, Ruth Erickson, Larissa Fassler, Annette Fiero, Future Cities Lab, Andrea Hansen, Mark Alan Hughes, Tetsugo Hyakutake, Robert Le Ricolais, Lily Jencks, Peter Lloyd Jones, Keith Kaseman, Ferda Kolatan, John Landis, Sylvia Lavin, Andrew Lucia, Ian McHarg, Frank Matero, PEG Office of Landscape + Architecture, Rhett Russo, SERVO, Cathrine Veikos, Phoebe Washburn, Marion Weiss, and Richard Wesley.

Megan Born is a landscape and architectural designer at James Corner Field Operations in New York, a lecturer at the Yale School of Architecture and a graduate of PennDesign (M.Arch/MLA, 2008).

Following the talk, copies of Dirt will be available for purchase. A book signing and reception will be held in the library.