Land Arts of the American West

LAND ARTS OF THE AMERICAN WEST is an interdisciplinary field program expanding the definition of land art through direct experience with the full range of human interventions in the landscape—from pre-contact indigenous to contemporary practices. Each fall we spend two months camping and traveling to work in a broad range of sites.

LAND ARTS is a collaboration between Studio Art and Design The program is funded in part by the Lannan Foundation and Andrea Nasher, and is co-directed by Bill Gilbert and Chris Taylor.

Land Arts of the American West is co-sponsored by the University of New Mexico and the University of Texas at Austin. It was founded at UNM in 2000 and became a joint program in 2002. It is co-directed by Bill Gilbert at UNM and Chris Taylor at UT. The program is funded in part by Lannan Foundation and Andrea Nasher.




VISION + GOALS
Land Arts of the American West is an interdisciplinary, studio-based, field study program that investigates the overlay of land arts practices from pre-contact times to the contemporary era. The program has been formed around the following goals:

Land Arts investigates the spectrum of site interventions from pre-contact Native American to contemporary Euro-American cultures.

Land Arts provides students with direct physical contact with the sites under study.

Land Arts is a studio-based program that requires students to work in the field in direct response to site-specific conditions and provocations.

Land Arts asserts that an interdisciplinary discourse (art, architecture, and design) is essential to a full apprehension of the meaning of these sites.

Land Arts is dedicated to the idea that cultural expressions are influenced by place.

Land Arts contends that students educated in the universities of the Southwestern United States should be cognizant of the human interventions in this landscape across time and cultures.

Land Arts hinges on bringing Art and Design together in ways that extend beyond the notion of “art in the landscape” or the “documentation of the landscape.” By placing students both in the landscape, and between disciplines, the program provides a space where the boundaries between these disciplines become as tenuous as the boundaries in the landscape itself. Living on the land for weeks at a time, moving through the landscape in seamless experience and working directly in the environment students develop skills of perception and analysis unattainable in a classroom setting.

Assembling a diverse group of students and faculty from different institutions and disciplinary backgrounds is critical to the foundation of Land Arts. Bringing individuals from different geographic and cultural backgrounds together provides a space of inquiry for questions of the individual and the environment. Bill Gilbert, Professor of Art, at the University of New Mexico, and Chris Taylor, Assistant Professor of Design, at the University of Texas at Austin jointly direct the program. Course offerings and curricular structure are integrated jointly into the respective programs (disciplines) and capitalize on the strengths of an interdisciplinary inquiry.

The initial three-year pilot phase (which began in Fall 2002) is an opportunity to bring the program fully online, demonstrate its value and potential, and provide a base from which to secure permanent funding. This phase will also enable the ongoing evaluation of the scholarly, institutional, and logistic relations. During the three-year startup period funding is distributed between the Lannan Foundation, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Texas at Austin.




HISTORY
The original idea that spawned Land Arts came from Bill Gilbert and was field-tested by the University of New Mexico in the Fall of 2000. The first run of the program was completed with the assistance of John Wenger from UNM and funding from the Lannan Foundation. While on sabbatical in 2001 Bill Gilbert approached Chris Taylor about the possibility of expanding the interdisciplinary nature of the program to include design and architecture by including the Design Division at the University of Texas at Austin. During the Spring of 2002 the necessary agreements between the two institutions we established and by the Fall of that year a three year pilot phase of the program had begun.

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