In this section Dr. Rebecca Uchill discusses her hope that educators will teach courses similar to 4.S67 Landscape Experience: Seminar in Land/Art in different settings. She suggests two models for developing field-based land art and landscape courses.
My Landscape Experience began with the premise that we had to be in a landscape to make and know it as one. I look forward to seeing how this syllabus may develop in different settings.
—Dr. Rebecca Uchill
My hope is that the 4.S67 OpenCourseWare site can be a productive opportunity for others to enroll in or teach a course like this in other contexts. Given the diversity of language, politics, ecosystems and formalisms of landscapes, I expect that these Landscape Experiences might vary considerably, accruing different nuances and even content depending on site-specific localities, opportunities, and current events. There are a range of field-based land art and landscape course models to look to in developing new syllabi – for example, Bill Gilbert and Chris Taylor’s Land Arts of the American West and Nicholas Brown’s Landscape Interpretation and Spatial Justice.
My Landscape Experience began with the premise that we had to be in a landscape to make and know it as one. I look forward to seeing how this syllabus may develop in different settings. The course has also prompted me to think about how other courses can similarly incorporate learning about ourselves as responsible activators, stewards, and interpreters of the cultures we produce and the places we inhabit.
Image Gallery: Land Art and Landscapes from the Optional Course Field Trip
All photos courtesy of Jessica Varner and used with permission.
