Kennedy Library to feature work of Professor Lana Z Caplan
Featuring the work of artist and Cal Poly Associate Professor Lana Z Caplan, Oceano - for seven generations interrogates the history of the dunes with their the present-day conditions. Residents and local animal species struggle against the strain of 2 million annual visitors to the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA), where 4-wheelers and motorcycles and buggies roar on the beach, churning the sand and mixing it with the precious ocean breeze.
Photo by Lana Z Caplan
Exhibition dates: August 31 - December 11, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 17, 5-7 pm
Panel discussion: Thursday, October 15, 6 pm
Kennedy Library
Curated by Suzie Smith
Curator Statement:
Sites of legend, history, and ritual are complex. They hold a mythology that cushions the urgency of contemporary conflicts. Nowhere in San Luis Obispo County is this more evident than the Guadalupe-Nipomo dunes. Over centuries, many communities have called this space home.
Featuring the work of artist and Cal Poly Associate Professor Lana Z Caplan, Oceano - for seven generations interrogates the history of the dunes with their the present-day conditions. Residents and local animal species struggle against the strain of 2 million annual visitors to the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA), where 4-wheelers and motorcycles and buggies roar on the beach, churning the sand and mixing it with the precious ocean breeze.
On view in this exhibition are photographs of Tribal members and recreational riders, among others, whose portraits are, according to the artist, “constructed performances rather than documents.” By challenging the myth of the photograph as fact, Oceano – for seven generations “interrogates colonization, image-making, and the politics of land use, charging this landscape with meaning far beyond the dunes themselves.”
Oceano – for seven generations was first published as a monograph by Kehrer Verlag in 2023.
Lana Z Caplan is an artist working across media, including photography, installation, and video. She has exhibited her work internationally, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Tucson), Griffin Museum of Photography (Boston), and Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), among many others. Her publication is also held in the collections of distinguished institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Getty Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Caplan is currently an Associate Professor of Photography and Video at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.