Landscape: The Garden

Open to the Art School only. This course may be
open to students at other year levels, and in
other Schools, by Permission of Instructor.
Practice Courses within the Photography and Media
program focus on making work and developing the
shape of students' practices. While each course
under this category may offer a particular theme
or subject matter, its primary organization and
outcomes will center around making. This category
will include, but not be limited to, modes of
production fundamental to photographic and
media-based practice, including film-based and
digital photography, video and moving image
production, sound production, performance and
book-making, and will sometimes include a focus
on the primary genres and categories of
production common to media and photography.

The English word "paradise" comes from an ancient
Persian word for garden and from that time the
Persians have been know as the creators of the
closed gardens of the arid eco-cultures of the
middle east. Imported to Europe through Moorish
Spain the concept of the walled garden as a
trans-dimensional slice out of the world of the
imagination transformed over the centuries. The
relationship of nature and art is a historically
realized into these utopian, privileged and often
sacred sites. In the second of a two semester
investigation into the Landscape, we will examine
the historical models and their relation to
contemporary art practices utilize multiple or
disrupted points of view in contrast to the
paradigm of a universalized and natural.
Rehearsed against the backdrop of global
politics, environmentalism, or the economics of
food distribution, we will look at the garden as
a theatrical backdrop that shapes a culturally
determined social space.