Judy Baca in front of the Great Wall of Los Angeles.

Internationally acclaimed artist and art educator Judy Baca will explore the power the visual arts have to speak on behalf of those who have no voice at the next installment of California State University, Northridge’s Commerce of Creativity Distinguished Speaker Series on Wednesday, April 30.

Baca, a community arts pioneer and CSUN alumna who is the artistic director of the UCLA@SPARC Cesar Chavez Digital/Mural Lab, will give the final lecture in the annual series hosted by the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication at 7 p.m. in the Kurland Lecture Hall of the university’s Valley Performing Arts Center. The center is located at the south end of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge.

Baca’s lecture, “Excavating Land and Memory Through Public Art,” will focus on the artistic practice of community engagement and community cultural development.

“The college is always thrilled to host one of its own, very talented alumni at a Commerce of Creativity presentation,” said Cynthia Rawitch, interim dean of the Curb College. “Judy Baca’s visit is especially thrilling for me, since I have loved the ‘Great Wall of Los Angeles’ mural for decades since I first lived in the east San Fernando Valley. I think Judy’s visit is a perfect way to cap off this year’s series.”

Baca, who earned her bachelor’s of art in 1969 and master’s of art education in 1980 from CSUN, is a world-renowned painter and muralist. Among her best-known work is “The Great Wall of Los Angeles,” which lines a flood-control channel in the east San Fernando Valley. Currently the world’s longest mural at 2,740-feet long, Baca supervised the wall’s creation by more than 400 at-risk youth and their families. The project tapped the talents of local artists, oral historians, ethnologists, scholars and community members to capture the multi-cultural history of California from pre-history through the 1950s. It was begun in 1976 and plans are underway for its next four decades of evolution.

Baca has crafted a career using the visual arts as a way to champion equality for all people. She has earned an international reputation for her integration of ethics and creative expression in educational and community-based art methodologies.

“I want to produce artwork that has meaning beyond simple decorative values,” Baca said. “I hope to use public space to create a public voice, and consciousness about the presence of people who are often the majority of the population, but who may not be represented in any visual way. By telling their stories we are giving voice to the voiceless and visualizing the whole of the American story while creating sites of public memory.”

The muralist has taught art in the University of California system since 1981, beginning at UC Irvine before moving to UCLA’s Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies in 1996. She founded, in 1974, Los Angeles’ first mural program. That program later evolved into the community arts organization known as the Social and Public Resource Center (SPARC), which has been creating sites of “public memory” since 1976. She continues to serve as the organization’s artistic director while serving as the artistic director of the UCLA@SPARC Cesar Chavez Digital/Mural Lab, which employs digital technology to create collaborative mural designs.

Baca continues to work with communities to create murals. In 2010, she completed the Cesar Chavez Memorial at San Jose State University and the Robert F. Kennedy monument at what is now known as Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, formerly the Ambassador Hotel, the site of Kennedy’s assassination. She is currently working on a 60-foot digitally painted mural for the Richmond Civic Center in Northern California and an interactive mural for the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, a social justice high school in Los Angeles.

The Commerce of Creativity Distinguished Speaker Series is free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended and should be made by April 28. To make a reservation, visit the website c2speakers.com/judy-baca/ or call (818) 677-2246.

California State University, Northridge’s Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication is inspired by the shared belief that art is community, community is art and that art and communication are essential pillars for building and maintaining community. Its programs, including those in art, music, theater, cinema and television arts, communications studies and journalism, have an international reputation for graduating skilled professionals who succeed in their respective fields.

Commerce of Creativity, Mike Curb College of Arts Media and Communication