Landscape as Material – Joe Winter

This intermediate sculpture course attempts to understand landscape as the overlap of various dimensions--the physical, the cultural, the social--and will investigate how materials, objects, and systems occupy and transform these dimensions. We will employ landscape as the organizing principle in the selection, production, transformation, arrangement, analysis, and imagination of objects and materials within a sculptural art practice. Each student enrolled in the course will identify a specific landscape, location, or site to examine--e.g., the kitchen, the border, the prison, the playing field-- locating a point of departure for a series of studio-based projects. Readings, screenings, slide presentations, and site visits will allow us to examine specific landscapes, from the natural to the institutional to the imaginary. In doing so, we will attempt to understanding how landscape and space shape us and how we, as artists, can use, transform, and understand the landscapes we inhabit.