LAND RESEARCH GROUP
In Fall 2016, we launched a book club and discussion group as a participatory research project to fulfill our need to be in regular dialogue with others around ideas and issues we wanted to dig into more deeply. We invited a small cross-disciplinary group of artists, designers and educators to join us in reading and discussion around the landscape. As individuals and as a group, we are concerned with the relationship of place to the intersection of the social and natural worlds, and locate ongoing observation, reflection and dialogue at the heart of this practice.
Our readings and discussions explore a wide range of generative topics and issues concerned with the land and have inspired ideas for individual and collaborative projects. In 2017, we started a year long study of climate change to wrap our heads around the challenging human aspects of this urgent global dilemma, to better understand how our work can support efforts to reverse political and behavioral attitudes towards the preservation of our earth. We realize that it has to start in our own actions, back yards, neighborhoods, communities and cities. Members of our group are Artist, Architect and Educator Carol Mancke, Visual Artist Sukey Bryan, Artist and Landscape Architect Mary Muszynski, Poet and Educator Genine Lentine, FW Visual Artists, Designers and Educators Trena Noval and Ann Wettrich.
The rich resource of scholarship and writing about the land is abundant and encourages us to keep reading to understand our place on the land.
A sample of our readings to date: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein; Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer; The Landscaping Idea of Jays by Judith Larner Lowry