AUD60 celebration continues with "Core Samples" exhibition opening

The second event in our AUD60 series was the March 12 opening reception for "Core Samples," an exhibition organized by AUD's Samaa Elimam and Michael Osman.

As UCLA AUD celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2026, we honor the legacy of our students, faculty, and collaborators with a series of public programs. “Core Samples” uncovers decades of materials from AUD’s archives, an assemblage that highlights the volume and heterogeneity of media used to record design work over the sixty years of pedagogy at Perloff Hall.

The media on view, in their diverse recording technologies, serve also as evidence of the multigenerational nature of the institution and its self-regard. The exhibition is in fact determined by the various material infrastructures that serve to contain a collective memory.

“Core Samples” also initiates the transformation of the AUD archive into a teaching collection. The exhibition vacillates between a display and a classroom to reactivate stored materials during and after the opening. It suggests a future for research and pedagogy based in the archival collection: it is, after all, an archive of teaching and learning that projects many visions of the future. The display will enact “a seminar in progress” to invite collaboration and encourage an open-ended form of sociability for viewing and discussing the archive.

Browse our "Core Samples" photo gallery below, and be in touch if you would like to arrange a viewing of the exhibition.

AUD60 continues with conference "Transitioning Worlds" on April 20 and 21, 2026.

All photos by Sarah M. Golonka