CONSCIOUS HOMESTEADING: ART, DESIGN, ECOLOGY, AND RURAL LAND USE

FULFILLS:
ARTP 383/896 (ACE 07)

PREREQUISITES:
none

MATERIALS FEE:
$50

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Stacy Asher

Associate Professor of Art in graphic design.
Area of Focus: interactive and traditional print media

MFA in Design from California College of the Arts

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Explore the merging of art, design, ecology, and rural land use through an immersive experiential learning opportunity in the great outdoors of western Nebraska. This course will investigate how people, over centuries of time, have inhabited, and occupied the land at Cedar Point Biological Station.

Creative research projects will demonstrate how people of the past designed their life so that they could not only survive but thrive. How were basic human needs met so that people could live life well, recreate, rejoice, rest and relax? How was the land honored, conserved, and protected?

The wide variety of habitats and the abundance and diversity of flora and fauna found at Cedar Point provide rich content for investigations. Projects will be realized through the examination of principles of permaculture design. Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement techniques that adopt designs that are observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It requires whole systems thinking and is often applied to rural and urban planning, regenerative agriculture, and the practice of sustainability and resilience.

Projects and research will be self-directed and tailored to the student's interests. Installations of art and design, digital projections, publications, and presentations will be collaboratively produced.

Observing, deconstructing, painting, sketching, modeling, sculpting, building, drawing, journaling, photographing, designing, mapping, charting, diagramming, prototyping, recording, modeling, and creating re-enactments are some of the many processes that students will utilize. Google Earth. Sketch Up, Data Studio, and other open-source tools will be used for 3D rendering, image-making, and data visualizations.