FINAR604 GE: Topophilia

The term topophilia couples sentiment with place. What are our views on our physical environment, man-made and natural? How do we as artists link our concepts towards our environment and world-views? How do we work with such concepts as place and non-place, site specificity and landscape in our practice? Which of these terms are internal moveable concepts and which might be external or shifting definitions that evolve over time. How do we define place in a culturally complex, de-centered and global world? What is local and vernacular, what is a dreamed ideal space, a public place? How do we move through a space, represent a place? We will examine our perceptions, attitudes and values through the work of artists working with questions of place, from film and video works to diverse contemporary practices including architects and eco artists such as Amber Hasselbring, of the Mission Greenbelt project. We will look at the public space and nature work of Tim Collins and Reiko Goto, Edi Rama's transformation of the Albanian capital as artist mayor, James Benning's recently completed 20 year film archive of the Spiral Jetty and Jeremy Deller's, the Battle of Orgreave etc. We will read such writers on these questions as Yi-Fu Tuan, Edward Casey, Rebecca Solnit, JB Jackson, Miwon Kwon, Marc Auge, Minouri Sato, Tim Cresswell, Simon Schama and Tacita Dean among others. In addition to viewing work and discussing this topic, we will get to know one another's work through studio visits. After more informal conversations, students will be asked to give a presentation of their work in relation to these themes.