HATTIESBURG — The Department of Art and Design at the University of Southern Mississippi will present a sculptural installation created by guest artist Matthew Moore Feb. 23 through March 23 at the Museum of Art on the Hattiesburg campus.

An artist reception is planned from 4 to 6 p.m., Feb. 23 at the museum.  Moore, of Goodyear, Ariz., will present a slide lecture Feb. 21 from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Gonzales Auditorium in the Liberal Arts Building.

Moore’s “concerning development” exhibition is a collection of several art mediums – documentary photographs of recent works, digital video projections and site-specific sculptural installations. Digital video of the post-Katrina coastline is juxtaposed with images of the Arizona desert and images of early stages of urban housing developments.

“As we progress into the 21st century, the scope of society’s influence and responsibilities continue to broaden,” Moore said in his artist statement.  “We remain a culture of immediacy and often disregard how our decisions shape the future.”

Taking an ecological look at what happens when the human population overdevelops, Moore said that 2005 “brought the power and persistence of nature to the doorsteps and television screens of people all over the globe.”

“Even though the fragility of societies worldwide verifies the earth as a tenuous platform for existence, expansion persists in landscapes that may not sustain continued, or even past, development,” Moore said.

A sculpture graduate of San Francisco State University and a studio art and art history graduate of Santa Clara University (California), Moore has exhibited extensively in Arizona and California.  The Southern Miss exhibition will be his first show in Mississippi.

His 2005 exhibitions included Regarding the Rural, in MASS MoCA at North Adams, Mass., and reGenerations: Environmental Art in California exhibition at the Tender Land Festival in Pasadena, Calif.

Mark Rigsby, director of the Southern Miss Museum, refers to the exhibition as “thought provoking and intellectually challenging.” “This sculptural installation is an exciting and refreshing change of pace for us, very different from the more traditional exhibitions we’re used to.  It’s definitely a show not to be missed.”