Conversations: Art & Land(scape)

Catalog description

This 1-credit course explores the meanings encoded in the practice of representing land as landscape while foregrounding the idea that artmaking is the practice of exploring how to exist, co-exist and thrive on this planet. For example, visually investigating art landscapes as diverse as an idyllic 1663 Dutch painting of a working sugar plantation and Steve McQueen's 2012 photograph, "Lynching Tree," generates conversations about which narratives become recorded and remembered history and the motivating roles of power, privilege, and representation (presence and absence) in encoding these narratives. Students will learn how to negotiate their own complicated responses to the environment, how it's represented, seen, and discussed. Fulfills Core Requirements: Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) and Diversity (DIV).